Disney CEO Bob Iger has quietly stated he's pulling his company out
of the culture wars and returning to entertainment for entertainment's
sake. Iger's comment came during a meeting with investors on September 19 at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida.
According to an analyst note on Wednesday, Walt Disney
CEO Bob Iger told investors the company will "quiet the noise" in a
culture war that has pitted social conservatives against the global
media and entertainment conglomerate.
Iger’s brief statement,
included in an analyst report from Needham media analyst Laura Martin,
was part of an investors’ presentation on Tuesday at Walt Disney World
Resort in Orlando, Florida, in which the CEO also announced Disney will
double its investment in theme parks and cruise ships over the next
decade.
The comment mirrors a statement made earlier in 2023 by Iger.
At the time, Iger was responding to an investor who said the company was becoming too concerned with social issues.
“Our
primary mission needs to be to entertain ... and to have a positive
impact on the world,” Iger said at the time. “I’m very serious about
that. It should not be agenda-driven."
Iger's comment
came while he was detailing Disney's planned investment of $60B in its
parks over the next 10 years and three additional cruise ships by 2026.
The parks and cruise line are presently Disney's most profitable
branches, if not the sole profitable ones. As Brandon Morse pointed out
here in August 2023:
As previously covered by Newsmax,
Disney's stock price now sits at a 9-year low of $83.53 with its market
cap having fallen a whopping 56 percent since March 22, 2022. That
means it fell from $350.09 billion on that date to $196.05.
This
isn't a good look to investors, but that's just an element of Disney's
problem. A bad stock price is just the symptom of a disease that Disney
has no desire to shake.
As I last reported,
Disney CEO Bob Iger said during a Q3 report that his company would
begin toning down both the cost of its creations and the pace at which
they're released, but this misses the point. While both of these things
are definitely something harming Disney's bottom line, it's not the key
issue:
The real issue on Disney's hands at this time
is that it's burned too many bridges with its would-be audience. It's
politicized itself so heavily that half the country despises the
company, and on top of that, few people want to show up to a Disney
flick to get preached at or bear witness to another boring CGI-fest
whose stories were written by activists and not storytellers.
Disney
has shown a clear disdain for Americans and their values while
embracing a bubble-like mentality surrounding radical leftist social
justice values. They don't see their product as an artful creation but
as a soapbox from which to finger-wag.
Disney has more than a few financial and cultural issues on its hands. Its Disney+ streaming service has lost more than $11B since its introduction in 2019. Rumors are rampant
that Disney is currently looking for a buyer for ABC. Its stars are its
own worst enemy, as Rachel Zegler, star of the upcoming live-action
Snow White remake, first trashed the original then attempted playing the victim when blowback came her way.
The
question remains whether Iger is willing to stand up to and clean house
of the featherweight "creatives" at Disney currently cramming their
agenda into every available crevice. Can Disney actually get back to
entertaining families without belittling holders of traditional values
and catering to tiny minorities making maximum social media screeching
noises? Even the mighty Disney cannot continue bleeding red ink. The
company has alienated large swaths of its former audience. Muttered
comments will not stem this tide. Let's see action.
politicspresumptuous.com
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