• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, August 2, 2023

Walt Disney now looks to make one of its most dramatic, eye-opening transactions to come along in the TV business for some time: Selling off its linear TV networks.

If you didn't believe the words you heard from Chief Executive Officer of Walt Disney Bob Iger during a recent CNBC interview, a new report now says Disney is hiring back senior executives who are two of its most loyal lieutenants from the past for Iger -- Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs -- as advisors to handle some of these efforts.

Disney representatives did not respond to TV Watch inquiries by press time.

A possible deal would include the ABC Television Network, one of the four major TV broadcasting networks, and the major cable channel, FX Network -- this from one of Disney's most recent acquisitions.

For many, the sentiment is fairly obvious where the business is headed.

Iger was blunt: “The distribution model, the business model that forms the underpinning of that business — and that has delivered great profits over the years — is definitely broken. And we have to call it like it is.”

We might look back on how we got here -- but not too far back.

One of Iger's final moves -- before retiring the first time -- was buying half of 20th Century Fox's film and TV assets for $71.3 billion. That was a deal that included cable networks, TV and movie production studios, and, oh yeah, those regional sports networks (RSNs).

Disney made a savvy move with the latter -- selling the RSNs to Sinclair Broadcast Group for around $10 billion was a smart decision. This is now a rapidly declining part of the TV ecosystem, which immediately went south because of cord-cutting and pay TV providers reluctant to take on more expensive legacy TV networks.

But in retrospect, how good was it in buying/adding more networks -- FX, FXX, a stake in National Geographic, and Star India (now Disney+ Hotstar)?

Those now seem to be shaky propositions --especially Hotstar, which has been struggling to increase ARPU -- average revenue per user. 

On the flip side, bulking up on more TV and movie production studios' capacity seemed like a smart plan.

Content is still king. And it appears that streaming is still a growing and powerful queen that will carry that content to the goal line.

For Fox Corp. this was also a good future decision -- keeping only core live, linear TV and the Fox Television Network and Fox News Channel the home for high-profile sports and news content, respectfully. 

Now, four years later -- with Disney seeing some revenue and profits from those deals --- we are heading in a different direction. 

And what about selling off ESPN? Well, let's not get too crazy.

While Disney has been considering whether to spin off the big sports network, that would mean keeping a large equity stake in the business -- no matter what.

For Disney, juggling all the old-school TV networks -- all of them -- has just begun.