Time For A Shakeup of Disney Executives?

[Toxic34]

With the coming consummation of the Disney-Fox merger, it might hopefully fill the company, especially key executive positions, with new blood. It's time for the following people to be replaced at once:

 

Brian Frons, head of ABC Daytime

-Cancelled Port Charles without looking at other options that could have kept money flowing into the series or allowing proper resolution

-Stubbornly refused to bend or expand into digital and streaming, to the detriment of the ratings and money

-Cancelled OLTL and AMC to replace with talk shows no one watches, sued Prospect Park over the online continuation plans, and is just sitting on the series after the rights reverted back to ABC

-Helped oversee a general decline in GH writing, including attempt at PC tribute to leave fans high and dry

 

Anne Sweeney, head of Disney-ABC Television Group

-Instituted a gradual decline and rot at The Disney Channel and saw the loss of wonderful programming

-Produced a very hit-and-miss rollout of new series on ABC, where every hit was cancelled out by a failure as well as failing to find suitable replacements for beloved older programs signing off (TGIF lineup, Ellen's cancellation a year "The Puppy Episode", NYPD Blue)

 

Alan Horn, Walt Disney Studios head and chairman, de facto chairman of The Walt Disney Company (Bob Iger is officially chairman as well as CEO, but Horn handles many of those duties)

-Is head of live action films division as well as chairman, giving live action films "favored nation" status, meaning that animation, Pixar, Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm all are subordinate to him and he is their superior

-Films he is very hands off with (remakes, Oz the Great and Powerful, Saving Mr. Banks, Into the Woods, Christopher Robin and so on) do quite well, while films he personally champions (Tomorrowland, A Wrinkle in Time, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms) flop horribly

-Has overseen the atrophying of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and has helped engender a perception that Disney has stopped being creative and is merely rehashing past glories (largely overblown, but in many cases, perception matters more)

-Has an obsessive, fetishized focus on Disney's "family friendly" image, to the point of basically steering the company away from adult content by shuttering Touchstone Pictures and giving signs that after the Fox acquisition, he will "scale back" R-rated non-X-Men IPs, such as Alien (thus possibly preventing a revival of Neill Blomkamp's planned film), (if Horn was in charge in 1990, Pretty Woman would not exist)

-Terminated James Gunn from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 over past tweets that Gunn previously apologized for and which Horn had judged him sufficiently repentant for in the past

-May have had a hand in the John Lasseter debacle, due to apparent hating him from the start and looking for any reason to boot him

-Personally scheduled Solo's May release date, when Kathleen Kennedy told him that a Christmas 2018 release would be far better, and also refused to give proper marketing due to not wanting to split resources already going to Infinity War. Is content to let Kennedy take the fall

[Vee]

Uhhhh, Brian Frons and Anne Sweeney both left Disney/ABC years ago.

 

Alan Horn is going nowhere. And John Lasseter got himself fired.

[Toxic34]

Well, they may be gone, but the people that have been running their positions since aren't doing much better, and are effectively still carrying out their policies. Therefore, Frons and Sweeney are basically still in charge by proxy. Simply put, ABC and Disney Channel need fresh energy and new blood. There are signs of life, to be sure, with the The Good Doctor, The Conners and the pending revival/sequel series of NYPD Blue. I think that can easily be extended to ABC Daytime as well. CBS is doing very well, as Y&R is still getting lots of views, and CBS Daytime is throwing a lot of money at it as well as streaming support for it, and old episodes of cancelled series like As The World Turns and Guiding Light. ABC should learn from their example and do likewise with GH, AMC, OLTL, maybe even Port Charles.

 

As is taken from the Save AMC & OLTL Facebook group:

 

On Soap Opera Network, they today have a story where CBS Daytime Executive Angelica McDaniel is quoted about the future of Y&R. She said of Y&R (the quotes posted are trimmed a tad from the full story.) "We have this award-winning, ratings-generating, money-making show, and it really adds to the value of CBS."

 

She says Y&R is making money. All the current soaps in production make money. AMC, OLTL, ATWT and GL all made money. In the case of Brian Frons and ABC, he simply thought he could air cheaper daytime shows and get the same ratings. Boy was he wrong...

 

Now let's see what McDaniel of CBS said about streaming:"The Young and the Restless is also one of the top streamed shows on CBS.com and as trends evolve, we are aware of our viewers and we're making shows readily accessible so they can get their fix and follow their stories."

 

So how about that? CBS not only is behind their current soaps but also believe in the online market. ABC is also dabbling in online success with GH. GH is always within the top 5 streamed shows on ABC.com, and recent GH episode collections featuring Jason, Sam, Sonny, and Carly have placed #1 online. At this point ABC just needs to be aware of what is sitting right in front of their faces. Between ABC.com & Hulu, they have plenty of space to air our shows. If ABC ever wants to be #1 in Daytime again they must actually do something different. They will at some point learn that placing cheap duds on air doesn't work.

 

As for Horn, he clearly is not the leader Disney needs. He came in saying he could "calm the waters", but he only leaves behind drama behind him. He wants to be seen as this morally upstanding figure, but will stab allies in the back to do so. The films he personally puts his support under don't perform well, and he takes credit for those that do. He fetishizes Disney's family friendly image to a ludicrous point to where he's going to squander plenty of opportunities that will come with the Fox merger. If I was involved in Disney, I would be openly questioning Horn's leadership and his judgment on many items, not merely Gunn's termination. Even Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner at their worst wouldn't made such rash judgment as this.