• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 7 hours ago

Now that Josh D'Amaro is taking over as the new CEO of Walt Disney, with longtime Disney senior executive Bob Iger stepping down, expect some major changes.

This includes some businesses that previously were seen as untouchable.

For example, D’Amaro may need to revisit the idea of selling/spinning off the Disney’s cable TV networks -- including ESPN.

In recent years, Iger quashed that idea. He believed that having linear TV networks around would help support other businesses, especially for new streaming platforms.

While sports is a major deal for ABC/ESPN -- including the NFL and NBA, as well as making a somewhat smaller deal with Major League Baseball -- is all that enough to keep the linear TV networks going?

Consider those non-sports cable TV networks -- like Freeform, Disney Channel, FX, National Geographic, and others networks, as well as a 50% stake in A+E Networks. What is their viability going forward?

Kevin Mayer, a former Disney chief strategy officer and chairman of DTC and International -- and once viewed by analysts years ago as a possible CEO of the company -- had some strong opinions about what D’Amaro should do in a conversation with CNBC on Wednesday.

“He has to take some bold steps,” he says. “I don’t think in five years Disney will look the same at all.”

This has already started. On the day he was named to the CEO post, D’Amaro had a massive company meeting, “where he talked about making big bets and bold bets bets.”

“He is a risk taker,” says Mayer, now a co-founder and co-CEO of Candle Media. “That’s one of the reasons he got the top job.”

In addition to linear TV, Mayer says he needs to determine what Disney’s future relationship is with YouTube, and the transition from “long-form storytelling to short-form” -- as well as what to do with video games.

D'Amaro was a primary architect behind Disney’s $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games.

Seeing a young generation of consumers' "attention" shift -- more time spent with video games and short "vertical" video on YouTube and the like -- will mean major changes for the company, with a dramatic shift of monetization resources.

There is even a worry about what effect AI will have on the business. Theme parks? That’s the area D’Amaro came from -- still a bedrock, a foundation for the company’s cash flow going forward.

Like Iger before him who made major bold decisions by buying Lucasfilm, Marvel, Pixar Animation, and half of 20th Century Fox, look for D’Amaro to need to do the same.