DISNEY REORGANIZES ITS TV AND STREAMING CONTENT UNITS

Peter Rice, Chairman of the newly renamed Disney General Entertainment Content division, has unveiled the next wave of reorganization at the company in a memo sent to staff on Tuesday, following the major reorganization announcement made last month by Bob Chapek, CEO of The Walt Disney Company.

In his memo, Rice talked about the company’s decision to split off its content creation team from its distribution and commercialization efforts, and outlined its leadership and publicity structures. “For our team, this means we will wholly focus our resources and efforts on developing, producing and marketing exceptional content to fuel the company’s streaming and linear platforms while our colleagues at Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution will distribute and monetize that content and run the linear networks and streaming platforms,”  Rice said.

The exec also promised to work “hand in glove” with Kareem Daniel, the recently appointed Head of the Media and Entertainment Distribution Group; Rebecca Campbell, the Head of International and Direct-to-consumer; and the company’s international and media, and entertainment distribution teams.

Rice’s new leadership team consists of familiar names with new titles and responsibilities: Ravi Ahuja, President of Business Operations at DGEC; James Goldston, President at ABC News; John Landgraf, Chairman of FX; Gary Knell, Chairman at National Geographic Partners; Gary Marsh, President and Chief Creative Officer at Disney Branded Television; Courteney Monroe, President of National Geographic Content; and Dana Walden, Chairman of Entertainment at Walt Disney Television.

As part of the changes, Monroe now reports directly to Rice instead of Knell. Knell, who oversees the joint venture between Disney and National Geographic Society, now reports to the Board of National Geographic Partners. Moreover, Marsh now has an expanded slate of responsibilities, with a purview that extends to all Disney-branded TV content made for kids by DGE. Disney+’ unscripted content and production teams are joining the group as part of this reorganization.

The reshuffling also includes the consolidation of marketing, publicity and media planning. One agency, led by Shannon Ryan, President of Marketing at Walt Disney Television, will market DGE content distributed to Hulu and the linear networks. Meanwhile, FX’s marketing and publicity team, led by Stephanie Gibbons, will continue to market all FX programming for Hulu and linear.

Jayanta Jenkins is joining Disney from Samsung Mobile as Head of Content Marketing for Disney+ and General Entertainment, and will oversee a second internal agency that covers marketing, publicity and media planning for DGE-created content for Disney+ and linear networks including Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD and National Geographic.

“Focusing our structure around content engines and centralized support functions will make us more effective, flexible and prolific as we focus on our core strength: making great television,”  Rice concluded.