Disney Entertainment Television Lays Off 140

Layoffs took place today at Disney Entertainment Television. The company laid off about 2% of their workforce, but did not eliminate any teams.

What’s Happening:

Deadline reports that Disney Entertainment Television has laid off approximately 140 employees.
National Geographic was the hardest hit with about 60 layoffs equating to 13% of its staff.
Other divisions hit with significant layoffs include ABC Owned Television Stations, Freeform, operations of Disney linear entertainment networks, Unscripted, Marketing and Publicity.
As a part of DET’s new streamlining strategy, these layoffs had been planned for months following a division-wide review.
Almost half of the eliminated roles are in Burbank, CA with the rest largely in New York and Washington, D.C.
These cuts are a continued effort by Disney to cut $7.5 billion off of their operating costs, which began last year.
In May, Pixar Animation Studios cut around 175 people (14% of their staff). This was directly affected by The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger’s new financial model for streaming spending, which trimmed the animation studios’ plans for several Disney+ series.
Traditional media companies have been struggling to make ad revenue as most media consumption has transitioned from pay-TV to digital platforms.
Bob Iger described his new strategy to a Wall Street investor in May. He plans to spread the costs of programming by running shows and movies across streaming, broadcast and cable. He stated “We’re doing that across the board, Disney Channel, ABC, National Geographic, and it’s working… Now we’re going to continue to see erosion in terms of subs for those businesses, but we’re going to actually continue to drive profitability because we’re managing our costs so effectively.”
These DET layoffs come off the heels of Emmy nominations, which saw the media company net 183.
Last year, Disney eliminated 7,000 jobs between March and May in an effort to save costs.
These cuts led to the consolidation and elimination of several DET divisions. Disney TV Studios, Hulu, Freeform, and FX were all put under one executive. 20th Digital Studio and Disney TV Studios’ Creative Acquisitions unit were both eliminated.
Iger has been hailed a hero by investors for these cost cutting efforts, however, stock prices are significantly down from its $123.74 2024 peak. Disney started trading this morning at $93.79.
Disney will present its 3rd quarter earnings to Wall Street on August 7th.

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