Disney cuts around 140 jobs in TV division

Disney Entertainment Television is expected to cut around 140 jobs starting July 31, 2024.

The cuts primarily affect National Geographic, ABC Owned Television Stations, Freeform and unscripted television, marketing, publicity and operations for linear networks.

National Geographic’s television channel, which is 73% owned by Disney, was hardest hit, with it losing 13% of its entire team, or about 60 staffers. 

The layoffs do not come as a surprise, as Disney and other media companies are facing steady declines in their linear TV businesses, and these layoffs were focused on those operations. 

The timing of the cuts comes on the even of the close of the second quarter of 2024.

About half of the workers are based in Burbank, California, as well as the greater L.A. metro area. The remaining are centered in New York and Washington, D.C., which is home to Nat Geo operations.

Part of the reductions included merging ABC and Hulu’s unscripted teams, with two senior vice presidents, Belisa Balaban and Tiffany Faigus, cut. 

The New York Post reported that “Good Morning America” has to cut $19 million from its budget before Disney’s fiscal year wraps Sept. 30, 2024. Sources told the Post that the network is not planning to cut its highly-paid co-anchors Robin Roberts, Michael Strahan and George Stephanopoulos, however. 

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Other savings within ABC News could come from leaning more heavily on local reporters instead of network-level correspondents and not filling the role of president of the news division vacated by Kim Godwin in May 2024. Instead, sources say ABC News Group and Networks president Debra OConnell will instead shift those responsibilities to an existing lieutenant. 

ABC News declined to comment on the Post’s inquiries on those reports. 

Disney cut 14% of its Pixar Animation Studios team in May 2024, which also included pulling back on its content plans for Disney+.

In 2023, Disney cut around 4,000 jobs in two waves that started in March and April. All told, about 3.6% of its 220,000 employees were cut during 2023.

Earlier that year, the company said it was looking to trim a total of 7,000 positions throughout the company as part of a strategic restructuring. 

Another key part of Disney’s cost-savings strategy is to reduce spending on content production for direct-to-consumer platforms after it, along with numerous other outlets, spent billions of dollars creating original content for streaming and digital properties. 

Those plans have been pulled back by most major media companies. Disney, in particular, has also started aggregation strategies that include getting TV episodes onto streaming platforms faster, which executives have said has led to “unduplicated” audiences.