After failing to meet profit expectations, Disney fired CEO Bob Chapek on Sunday, less than two weeks after the entertainment conglomerate’s former chief executive released a memo to senior leaders calling for some “tough and uncomfortable decisions” through job cuts, travel restrictions and hiring freezes.
Disney, which employs about 190,000 workers, reported that its parks and media divisions fell short of profit projections during its fiscal fourth quarter (July–September). And Disney’s streaming services, which include Hulu, ESPN+ and Disney+, lost $1.47 billion during its most recent quarter.
Fourth-quarter revenue in the entertainment and media division fell 3% year over year to $12.7 billion compared to the same period last year, as the company’s direct-to-consumer and theatrical businesses struggled. Analysts had forecasted this segment’s revenue at $13.9 billion, according to StreetAccount estimates.
And Disney’s Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy has lowered investor expectations for the new fiscal year, forecasting revenue growth of less than 10%. The company reported 2022 fiscal revenue growth of 22%.
The entertainment giant’s shrinking profit margins are likely the result of the century old company’s abandonment of the conservative nuclear family values it was founded on, says Michael Brown, host of the Line of Fire broadcast and author of “Can You Be Gay and Christian?”
“There was a time when Disney was synonymous with family friendly entertainment, with something wholesome and enjoyable for your children,” Brown told Decision. “Today Disney is synonymous with LGBTQ+ activism, with gay characters and queer themes specifically designed to ‘enlighten’ your children. Talk about a radical shift!”
Suzanne Bowdey, editorial director and senior writer at the Family Research Council’s The Washington Stand, attributesDisney’s financial volatility “to the very public feud between Disney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), which outed the company as viciously anti-parent and pro-indoctrination.”
Bowdey writes further: “After content creators bragged that they were focused on ‘queering’ and sexualizing children, families started walking away from the entertainment magnate in mass. People canceled their vacations, dropped their subscriptions, and generally turned their backs on the 99-year-old franchise.”
Brown agrees. “This strategy will continue to alienate parents who were happy with Mickey and Minnie Mouse but have had it with headlines announcing, ‘20 Times Disney Featured LGBTQ+ Characters In Movies & TV Shows.’ This could well prove fatal for the Disney brand.”
But it doesn’t seem Disney is ready to correct course. Bob Iger, who has led Disney’s woke transformation since 2005, has been named Disney’s new CEO. Iger served as Disney’s executive chairman until last year.
The Political Forum’s Stephen Soukup, author of “The Dictatorship of Woke Capital,” lauds Disney’s decision to remove Chapek.
But, Soukup told The Washington Stand, “Unfortunately, by reverting immediately to the leadership of the man who designed and initially implemented the company’s current social and political strategies, the board did itself and its shareholders no favors. Bob Chapek may have drawn the public’s ire for his poor execution of Disney’s ‘woke’ approach, but that approach was Bob Iger’s in the first place.”
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