“I am personally committed” to the solution – The Hollywood Reporter

Disney CEO Bob Iger

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After Hollywood was baffled by remarks he made from the billionaire’s retreat calling notable writers and actors an “unrealistic” question earlier in July, Disney President Bob Iger took a more diplomatic approach during his company’s quarterly earnings call on Wednesday.

“Nothing is more important to this company than its relationships with the creative community. This includes actors, writers, animators, directors, and producers.” I have deep respect and appreciation for all those who play a vital role in the extraordinary creative engine that drives this company and our industry. It is my sincere hope that we will quickly find solutions to the issues that have separated us over the past few months. I am personally committed to working towards this result.”

Disney unveiled second-quarter results, including a $512 million streaming loss for its direct-to-consumer unit (Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+) as well as a $2.4 billion impairment charge associated with removing dozens of movies and TV shows from its services as a company. He scaled back his streaming shows. The primary Disney+ offering now reaches 105 million subscribers.

Because of the impact of the strikes on halting production, the Disney chief has revised estimates for its total programming spending this year. “We currently expect financial content spending for 2023 to be approximately $27 billion, which is lower than we previously indicated due to lower spending on produced content, due in part to writers’ and actors’ strikes,” Iger stated.

Iger, who had a reputation as a talent-friendly, media-savvy executive, spoiled this carefully crafted image of himself with a poorly timed televised strike from the Allen & Company conference in Sun Valley the day SAG-AFTRA called the strike order. On July 13, Iger said on CNBC, “There’s a level of expectation that they have that’s not realistic, and they add to a host of challenges that this business already faces, and that’s quite frankly, very annoying,” referring to the strikers. Those “unrealistic” comments have echoed through picket lines in Los Angeles and New York ever since.

As a risky summer strike punctuated by frantic rhetoric collided with earnings season, top entertainment executives decided to play it safe on investor calls, expecting they knew the gravity of the situation and offering vague hope that the parties would come. Back to the table amicably. They have instead allowed the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates on behalf of the major studios, to take the lead in launching responses to the union’s characterizations of why talks have failed so far.

Bob Bakish, CEO of Paramount Global, spoke Aug. 7 of his “sadness that we, as an industry, couldn’t come to an agreement.” Days ago, Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav, arguably enemy number one of syndicate members thanks to his $247 million 2021 salary package, admitted “we’re in uncharted territory” but vowed to make a “good faith” effort to strike a deal with SAG- AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America. And Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, who has seen his Los Angeles offices become a major site of protests since May, opted to make his company’s earnings call July 19 with the story of how he got it: His father was a union electrician who also went on strike.

Super agent Ari Emanuel — who, with its sports and entertainment powerhouse Endeavor, was not part of AMPTP, unlike Disney, Paramount and Netflix — was able to unravel from fellow moguls. While Endeavor, owner of agencies WME and IMG along with the UFC sports league, estimated it would get $25 million from the impact of the actors and writers’ strikes because deals and productions were halted, Emanuel said, “We still stand with our customers, defend them and pay from order to resolve.” (He also described the current impasse, which, in the book’s case, has reached 100 days, as “unlike any strike that has occurred in a long time.”)

One pole has been remarkably silent on strikes? Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, the president of NBCUniversal, has apparently not been publicly quoted from the predicament since May. His direct report, Michael Kavanagh, president of NBCU, repeated an unspeakable line on a July 27 earnings call: “We’re committed to reaching a fair deal with the unions as soon as possible.”