The Walt Disney Company has issued pink slips to nearly 140 workers across its various local and national linear television operations.
The majority of the layoffs impacted workers at National Geographic, the fact-based magazine publishing and film production unit that also operates the linear National Geographic and NatGeo Wild television channels. Disney acquired National Geographic through its purchase of certain assets from 21st Century Fox (now Fox Corporation) several years ago.
Editorial, sales and marketing employees at Disney-owned ABC television stations are also among the affected workers — Disney owns the local ABC stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Houston, Fresno and Raleigh — and employees at its youth-oriented cable network Freeform.
The layoffs have been in the works for several months, after department heads at various Disney operations were given certain performance and human resource targets to meet. They come about a week before Disney is set to reveal its latest quarterly earnings report. Executives are expected to address the layoffs and other restructuring matters on a conference call with investors later in the day, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Like other entertainment companies, Disney has been under pressure to reign in costs as it increasingly focuses on direct-to-consumer streaming products for delivery of its entertainment, live sports and news content. Disney operates three streaming services — Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus — and is working to further capitalize on those products and reorient its entertainment business around them.
The shift comes at a time when consumers are increasingly ditching their cable and satellite TV plans for cheaper streaming options, which has impacted affiliate fees collected from the distribution of channels on those platforms, along with advertising dollars that are moving away from traditional TV toward connected platforms.
