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Disney Cuts Hundreds More Jobs in New Round of Corporate Streamlining
The Walt Disney Co. is cutting hundreds of jobs across the company as it continues a sweeping corporate restructuring initiative launched earlier this year.
This latest wave of layoffs impacts corporate functions, Disney Entertainment Television (DET), ESPN, and various film studios. According to sources, Pixar and National Geographic are expected to absorb the brunt of the cuts in their respective divisions, while high-profile talent is being let go at ESPN.
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Major Hits at Pixar, National Geographic, and ESPN
The downsizing comes during a busy period for Pixar, which has released two films this year: the original feature Hoppers and the blockbuster hit Toy Story 5, which ranks among the biggest theatrical releases of the year so far. Despite the box office momentum, Pixar is expected to be the most heavily affected of Disney’s film studios. Meanwhile, National Geographic will bear the largest share of reductions within the Disney Entertainment Television unit.
At ESPN, the restructuring includes some notable on-air personalities. Longtime SportsCenter anchor and Baseball Tonight host Karl Ravech, who joined the network in 1993, is among those impacted, alongside Ryan Clark, a former NFL player who has served as a key football analyst for over a decade.
Despite these high-profile talent departures, the majority of the ESPN layoffs affect behind-the-scenes staff following Disney’s acquisition of the NFL Network earlier this year.
In a Tuesday morning memo to staff obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro addressed the changes:
“Over the past several months, we’ve made significant progress integrating the NFL assets that we acquired into ESPN. Throughout this process, we have taken the time to carefully evaluate our collective teams, resources and organizational structure to best position us for the future. As a result, we had to make some difficult decisions about job impacts that we will be communicating today.
While most of the job impacts are tied to the acquisition, we will also notify colleagues in other parts of the company today that their positions have been impacted. We are committed to treating employees with compassion and respect and to providing support as they navigate this transition.”
Impacted employees began receiving notifications on Tuesday morning.
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The Push Toward “One Disney”
This marks the third round of layoffs this year as CEO Josh D’Amaro and senior leadership work to reorient the conglomerate around a streamlined “One Disney” operational model.
The strategy began to take shape in January, when Disney unified its various marketing departments under Asad Ayaz, resulting in initial workforce reductions. In April, D’Amaro announced a broader restructuring that affected approximately 1,000 employees. While this newest round of cuts is smaller in scale, it highlights Disney’s ongoing effort to adapt its organizational structure to rapid technological shifts across the media landscape.
While D’Amaro did not issue a new memo for Tuesday’s cuts, he previously outlined the leadership team’s perspective during the April announcement:
“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,” D’Amaro wrote at the time. “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.”
For a company undergoing one of its most significant structural evolutions in years, these ongoing adjustments prove that the transformation under the “One Disney” mantle is far from over.
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