More bad news from The Walt Disney Company today as The Walt Disney Studios will also be laying off a “handful” of employees, including several from Searchlight Pictures, according to Deadline.
- No exact number of layoffs has been shared at this time, but Deadline reports that six employees from Searchlight Pictures, formerly Fox Searchlight, have been affected.
- The Walt Disney Studios’ marketing group has also been heavily impacted as well as the theatrical stage team in New York.
- This makes sense as Disney Theatrical was obviously heavily impacted by the shutdown of Broadway.
- With the news of ESPN being heavily impacted by layoffs earlier today, Deadline reports that the Studios’ layoffs are far less than the 6% of the entire global team ESPN lost today.
- The layoffs reportedly also include several hundred open positions.
- Disney’s Television division has not been impacted by layoffs today.
More on the ESPN layoffs from earlier today:
- In a memo sent out this morning, ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro has announced the sports media company has made the difficult decision to lay off 300 employees.
- Pitaro says deciding to layoff employees was not easy, but necessary. He’s confident that ESPN will be able to, “move forward and effectively navigate this unprecedented disruption."
- Pitaro notes that prior to the layoffs, ESPN took steps to keep as many employed as possible with efforts such as salary reductions for executives and talent, furloughs and budget cuts. Now, however they’ve, “reached an inflection point.”
- With their pared down workforce, ESPN will be placing a greater focus on the direct-to-consumer aspect of their business as Pitaro cites the “tremendous disruption” caused by the pandemic has forced audiences to find new ways to consume sports.
- Disney itself is also shifting their business model and recently announced a structural reorganization with a focus direct-to-consumer and streaming.