Disney has officially announced its new CEO.
Disney on Tuesday announced that it has chosen Disney Experiences chairman Josh D’Amaro its new CEO, succeeding Bob Iger. D’Amaro will officially assume the role at the company’s annual meeting on March 18, with Iger sliding into a senior advisor role until his December 31 retirement.
The announcement comes nearly six years after Disney named Bob Chapek — D’Amaro’s predecessor in the experiences division — Iger’s initial successor. Chapek’s tenure was sufficiently rocky as to result in Iger returning to the company after less than two years’ retirement.
Iger’s second stint as Disney CEO was consumed by changes in the linear media industry. He made considerable headlines in the summer of 2023 after musing about whether Disney’s linear networks — save for ESPN — were “core” to the company, and Disney held exploratory conversations about a potential sale of ABC. But after a lengthy internal review, Disney determined that the linear networks were actually an “asset” to its growing streaming business.
But perhaps the biggest changes at Disney during Iger’s run were at ESPN, which last year finally launched its long-anticipated direct-to-subscriber streaming option and separately struck one of the most consequential deals in its history — an acquisition of NFL Media assets, including NFL Network, that closed earlier than expected this past Saturday. (The NFL acquired a 10% stake in ESPN as part of that deal, reducing Disney’s majority stake to 72%.)
In the final months of Iger’s tenure, Disney won easier-than-expected government approval of both the ESPN-NFL Media deal and a merger of competing streaming MVPDs Hulu and Fubo.
After failing in its bid to create a sport-specific streaming bundle with Fox Corporation and Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney now owns an ESPN DTC option that is increasingly resembling a ‘bundle’ thanks to the inclusion of the now ESPN-owned NFL Network and — thanks to a new MLB media rights deal struck by ESPN last year — MLB Network. And if not sport-specific, the company now owns two of the five remaining streaming MVPDs.
Some credit of course also belongs to ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro, whose success in overhauling the network’s strained relationship with the NFL would seemingly have made him a realistic contender for the CEO position. But Pitaro repeatedly stressed that he was satisfied with his ESPN role, which he has called his “dream job.”
