The Walt Disney Company is cutting hundreds of jobs across Pixar, ESPN, Disney Entertainment Television (DET), and more studios in their next round of layoffs.
Hundreds of Disney Layoffs
Affected employees are being notified today, Tuesday, July 21.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Pixar is the film studio seeing the most cuts. National Geographic is the most impacted segment under DET.
Some on-air talent has been eliminated at ESPN, including SportsCenter anchor and Baseball Tonight host Karl Ravech, and former NFL player and analyst Ryan Clark.
Most ESPN layoffs are behind-the-scenes staff, related to Disney’s NFL deal.
ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a memo to employees on Tuesday morning, “Over the past several months, we’ve made significant progress integrating the NFL assets that we acquired into ESPN. Throughout this process, we have taken the time to carefully evaluate our collective teams, resources and organizational structure to best position us for the future. As a result, we had to make some difficult decisions about job impacts that we will be communicating today. While most of the job impacts are tied to the acquisition, we will also notify colleagues in other parts of the company today that their positions have been impacted. We are committed to treating employees with compassion and respect and to providing support as they navigate this transition.” (via The Hollywood Reporter)
This follows approximately 1,000 Disney layoffs earlier this year, following the appointment of Josh D’Amaro to CEO of Disney and Asad Ayaz as their first Chief Marketing Officer. In January, the company reorganized the marketing department, then eliminated entire teams in April. About 8% of the Marvel workforce was laid off.
At the time, D’Amaro said the layoffs were a hard decision and “not a reflection of [employees’] contributions, or of the overall strength of the company. Rather, they reflect our continual evaluation of how to more effectively manage our resources and reinvest in our businesses.”
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