Disney cuts several hundred jobs across Nat Geo, Pixar, ESPN, ABC News

Disney has implemented another major round of lay-offs, with Nat Geo, Pixar, ABC News and ESPN among the brands impacted.

Josh D’Amaro

While the US media giant did not disclose an exact number, C21 understands several hundred jobs have been culled across the company’s US-based teams.

Pixar Studios and Nat Geo have reportedly been hit hardest by the cuts. According to Deadline, almost 100 positions were cut within the Disney Entertainment Television division, with most of those coming at Nat Geo’s cable and editorial operations, while a further 100 Pixar jobs were also eliminated.

Several on-air roles have also been cut at ESPN, including baseball play-by-play announcer Karl Ravech and National Football League (NFL) analyst and ex-player Ryan Clark.

In a memo to staff, Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro said the ESPN cuts were tied to the multi-faceted deal that saw the NFL buy a 10% stake in ESPN in exchange for Disney taking control of NFL Network and NFL RedZone.

This marks the second major round of lay-offs implemented by Disney since D’Amaro took the reins from former CEO Bob Iger in March.

Around one month into D’Amaro’s CEO tenure, Disney cut around 1,000 positions, with many of the jobs going in its marketing departments.

At the time, D’Amaro said: “Over the past several months, we have looked at ways in which we can streamline our operations in various parts of the company to ensure we deliver the world-class creativity and innovation our fans value and expect from Disney. Given the fast-moving pace of our industries, this requires us to constantly assess how to foster a more agile and technologically enabled workforce to meet tomorrow’s needs.”

In May, during the company’s second-quarter earnings call, D’Amaro and Disney’s chief financial officer Hugh Johnston also hinted that more lay-offs might be coming. When asked whether other job cuts could be coming on the heels of the April cull, D’Amaro said the company was examining all of its options as it builds a “culture of efficiency.”