It’s A Smaller World After All

This time, Adam Smith is being named chairman of direct-to-consumer for Disney Entertainment. Dana Walden, president and chief creative officer, The Walt Disney Company, announced the news on Thursday.

In the role, Smith will oversee Disney’s global entertainment SVOD business, driving strategy, development, and innovation across the company’s streaming platforms. He will also oversee Disney+ and Hulu in terms of product, engineering, adtech, and more.

“Over the past two years, Adam has done an exceptional job building a world-class team of product and technology leaders and has significantly enhanced the Disney+ user experience globally,” Walden said in a statement.

But based on the B and C stories which THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s reliable Alex Weprin was actually allowed to share in front a paywall, I come away feeling Walden at best signed off on what someone wrote for her–assuming, of course, a human was indeed tasked with that job in the first place:

Joe Earley, who had been co-president of direct-to-consumer, will move to a new role as president of Disney Entertainment Television franchise and content strategy, reporting to Deb OConnell.

In a memo to DET staff late Thursday, OConnell also announced that Eric Schrier will leave his post as head of DTC international originals, strategic programming and emerging media. The 26-year veteran of FX and Disney will move to a producing deal with Disney Entertainment television.

The fact that Earley was as connected to Walden as any of her fellow FOX alumni that Bob Iger elevated above a host of his existing executive team when Rupert Murdoch graciously sold him “the middle of the paper” in 2019 and that he was, like Walden, the runner-up in an internal derby for succession was to me telling enough that this was  a move that I strongly suspect neither party willingly put forth to D’Amaro.  In Schrier’s case, considering I have a long and positive history with him, I’m even more certain that’s the case.  Schrier literally rose from the seeds of being an executive assistant to Kevin Reilly as quickly and deservedly as I have ever seen any young talent and eventually was given the responsibilities of his boss’ boss Peter Rice when Iger realized that the word Principle might have been apropos to insert between his first and last names. And considering he’s also been blessed with genes that at first blush one would insist he couldn’t possibly not be a Millennial I’d have a really hard time believing what Weprin shared that O’Connell allegedly wrote on her own volition in her internal announcement:

I would also like to share an update about Eric Schrier. As Eric and I have been talking about the future, he shared with me his desire to return to his creative roots. After an extraordinary 26 years at Disney, including as one of the early architects of FX, Eric has decided this is the right moment to pursue that next chapter. I’m so pleased that we’ll continue working together through a new producing partnership with DET. Eric plans to share more about what’s ahead soon, and we’re excited about what we’re going to create together.

If the creative writers attached to memos that ingratiously begin with the word “Team” were assigned to spruce up the scripts for, say, THE MANDOLORIAN AND GROGU, CHAD POWERS or SHIFTING GEARS maybe Walden and Earley, let alone Schrier, might have been seen in somewhat better lights by the new sheriffs in town.  Then again, the fact that they are television executives at all probably worked against all of them.

You probably know D’Amaro rose to the top via the far more profitable Theme Parks division.  Here’s Smith’s pre-Disney CV and current mandate per Weprin:

Smith, a veteran of YouTube (where he led YouTube Premium and YouTube Music), joined Disney two years ago with a mandate to reimagine the product and technology underpinning the company’s streaming ambitions.

The new role will place all of the company’s DTC efforts under one executive, a structure that will matter even more as CEO Josh D’Amaro follows through on his plan to make Disney+ the “digital centerpiece” of the company. The previous structure saw multiple executives each overseeing different elements of the DTC experience, reporting up to Dana Walden and Alan Bergman. The new structure simplifies it under Smith.

Translated:  a “digital centerpiece” isn’t necessarily reliant on traditional ratings or reach.  It’s based on views and time spent–which can disproportionately come from “whales”.  My digital experience taught me the 80/20 rule–80 per cent of your revenue comes from 20 per cent of your users.  They were the sorts of folks that D’Amaro would regularly see at the parks, on cruises and in overpriced resorts–families saving for years for the “privilage” of dropping five figures on mediocre mouse-ear-shaped waffles and “Disney Princess” cosplay fostered since their cradles.  If they’re willing to do that, then the likelihood they’ll go down Disney-themed rabbit holes and also buy merch in the process makes them eminently more desirable to folks with Smith’s background that the kind of more democratized sorts that TV folk tend to attract.  And the fact that Smith shares a name with one of the more revered economists of the 20th century probably doesn’t hurt, either.

If you needed any further proof that D’Amaro’s Disney is dismissive of traditional media look no further than the follow-up salvo that IJR was able to annotate early this morning:

• Disney appointed Karandeep Anand as its first chief technology officer effective October 2.

• Anand reports to CEO Josh D’Amaro and will oversee enterprise technology, infrastructure, data, AI platforms, product and engineering.
• Some Character.AI technical employees are expected to join Anand at Disney.
• Anand previously held senior roles at Brex, Meta, and Microsoft.
• Disney and Character.AI resolved a copyright dispute last year after a cease-and-desist letter over unauthorized character use.

It’s points three and five that especially caught my eye.  Do recall it was actually Iger that was willing to work with companies like Anand’s at a time when the balance of the creative industry was apoplectic about the potential of their IP being incorporated into user-generated slop.  Disney’s theory was “it’s gonna happen anyway, so why not at least profit from it?”  After all, anyone open to any of the worlds that D’Amaro personally observed would be all the more likely to turn the other cheek and drop an additional few farthings into being able to have their Gen Alpha child drop Minnie Mouse in a kewl meme.   This to me sounds as much like a settlement term than an anointing.

And when one maths the math, getting someone like Schrier to “decide this is the right moment to pursue the next chapter” probably freed up just enough cache to afford Anand and his support team.  Or at least within a few rupees of the grand total.
Yet for all the snark and disappointment you might accurately be picking up I for one would contend D’Amaro’s merely doing the job he was hired to do.  And if Walden and company had been achieving better results with the old school ratings and reach metrics when they had the chance to be judged by them maybe they would have been the push-ers and not the push-ees.  And anyone who ran YouTube would be among the first to be able to articulate in detail why they all fell short.

We should all have the sort of soft landings that have been reported this week.  And I’m sure even Earley and Schrier would tell you that if asked.  Feel free to emote in any way you choose should that happen.  It’s a world of laughter and a world of tears, no?

Until next time…