Belisa Balaban, Tiffany Faigus out as Disney axes more jobs, merges unscripted teams
Disney is to merge the unscripted teams at Hulu and ABC Entertainment as part of a cull of around 140 jobs, with senior executives Belisa Balaban and Tiffany Faigus set to exit.
News of yet more layoffs at the troubled entertainment giant emerged yesterday, with Disney starting the process of cutting 2% of its workforce in the television division.
The redundancies will primarily focus on nature and history brand National Geographic, youth-skewing cable channel Freeform, some regional TV stations, as well as marketing and publicity staffers.
Cablenet Nat Geo is to be the worst hit, with 60 workers set to lose their jobs, around 13% of the team.
Deadline reported that the plan to combine teams at ABC Entertainment and Hulu is being led by Rob Mills, EVP unscripted and alternative entertainment at Walt Disney Television.
The two most high-profile victims of the merger are said to be Faigus and Balaban.
Faigus is SVP unscripted and alternative entertainment, ABC Entertainment and Walt Disney Television Alternative. Joining ABC in 2015, she has managed some of the network’s most successful titles, including Shark Tank, Judge Steve Harvey, Celebrity Wheel of Fortune and Holey Moley.
Faigus was upped to senior VP of unscripted and alternative entertainment at ABC Entertainment and Walt Disney Television in late 2021.
For unscripted unit Walt Disney Television Alternative, Faigus is responsible for both increasing the output and inventory of owned and distributed unscripted programming across all platforms, as well as expanding the production unit’s team.
Balaban, meanwhile, joined streamer Hulu in 2017 and launched original documentary films including Oscar-nominated Minding the Gap and Emmy-nominated Fyre Fraud. She also added original titles such as Crime + Punishment and Dr Ruth to the platform’s slate.
Previously serving as original content director, Balaban was elevated to the role of VP of original documentaries in 2020, charged with developing, producing and acquiring original factual titles.
Prior to joining Hulu, Balaban was the head of original programming at Participant Media’s network Pivot, as well as having served as senior VP of development at Actual Reality Pictures and setting up her own prodco alongside husband Ted Skillman.
The latest round of layoffs is part of Disney’s strategy to cut around 7,000 jobs as it looks to make $7.5bn in cost reductions, announced by CEO Bob Iger in February of last year.
The Mouse House is attempting to rationalise its finances across the entire business after overspending during the streaming wars era. The elimination of 7,000 positions represents over 3% of Disney’s roughly 220,000-strong workforce.
The company has since implemented multiple rounds of layoffs, most recently by letting go of 175 workers at Pixar Animation Studios.
