The cuts will affect National Geographic, locally owned television stations, Freeform, and marketing and public relations departments.
On Wednesday, Disney announced layoffs, affecting around 140 employees, or 2% of its staff in the television sector.
Although no entire teams are being dismantled, the layoffs will mostly affect National Geographic, regionally owned TV stations, Freeform, and the network’s marketing and publicity departments.
National Geographic will see the most dramatic personnel reduction, with 60 employees, or around 13% of its steam, being laid off. Disney purchased this brand, recognized for its emphasis on nature and history, as part of its $71 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox in 2019.
Disney CEO Bob Iger said earlier this year plans to “pretty dramatically” slash expenditure on pay-TV content, particularly programs aimed at traditional networks, following an unsustainable investment in streaming. Disney’s TV series include FX’s “Shōgun” and “The Bear” and ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Abbott Elementary.” In an effort to save money, Iger announced in May that the business is aggregating a wider audience and amortizing costs by immediately releasing new network TV episodes on digital channels such as Hulu. “It’s working,” he explained. “What we’re getting is unduplicated audiences.”
Disney has conducted multiple waves of layoffs as part of its leadership’s $7.5 billion cost-cutting strategy. As part of these cost-cutting initiatives, Pixar Animation, a branch of Disney’s film company, downsized its staff by about 175 employees, or 14%, in May. Mandates to reduce direct-to-consumer programming in favor of feature films prompted the reduction. To cut expenses, the media conglomerate reduced its global workforce by 3.6% in 2023, from a total of over 220,000 personnel.