08 Aug 2023 Bob Iger is Ruining Disney
Is Bob Iger purposefully trying to ruin Disney? He seems to be on a self-destructive mission.
Scott Shepard
In a commentary at RealClearMarkets, Free Enterprise Project Director Scott Shepard notes numerous ways the Disney CEO has driven his once-robust entertainment colossus into the ground:
- “[H]e bought up great swathes of entertainment companies that had been successful in other hands” and then hired “openly, brazenly partisan creative executives, who pushed niche, boutique, leftwing, upper-middle/lower-upper-class urban obsessions into everything that Disney produced… Relatedly, these partisan producers and executives happily gave up opportunities that looked profitable and popular, if their niche obsessions weren’t fully incorporated.”
- “Then he reportedly allowed these niche-obsessed executives to push out of Disney anyone who was unwilling to publicly subscribe to the executives’ obsessions…”
- Bob “then pretended to resign as CEO, but he kept his CEO’s office, and stayed right there on the premises, and interfered constantly in his ‘successor’s’ efforts. Part of that interference was to pressure the successor into picking a fight with the governor and government of the company’s second home state.”
- “He then returned formally as CEO, escalated the fight, and then when it turned out to be a disaster for Disney, admitted the loss but blamed it on the poor hapless guy who for a while was sock puppeted as CEO.”
- “Finally, after returning, he allowed the niche obsession to play out in the parks designed for small children as well.”
“You will not be surprised to hear that this has all resulted in Disaster at Disney,” continues Scott. “Attendance at the parks is down; other sources of revenue are drying up. The central fact is this: Disney has already almost certainly lost well more than a billion dollars on its movies this year in ways that have absolutely destroyed the value of all the purchases that Iger has made over the years.”
Yet even though “Bob has had to offer to sell off bits of Disney in what’s being called yard-sale fashion,” his contract has just been renewed through 2026.
Scott has his suspicions as to how that happened. Read the rest of his commentary to find out who may be pulling the strings.