NDM: Weekly News Article - W/C 27th February (50)

Disney lays off 80 at Maker and digital media unit

http://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2017/02/23/disney-lays-off-80-at-maker-and-digital-media-unit.html

Summary

Walt Disney is laying off a number of people from its digital media unit. This move is said to streamline redundancies from the incorporation of Maker into its consumer products and interactive media unit toward the end of last year. Some of the layoffs are due to Maker reducing its influencer network. Andrew Sugerman executive vice president of content and media at DCPI said “We’re building a digital media network of Disney and non-Disney content for kids and millennials on the platforms they use every day,". He continued "For advertisers, this network offers mobile, video, short-form content, micro-content, and influencers, all at scale."

Key Statistics

• Disney is laying off 80 people in its digital media division

• Disney brought Maker back in 2014, in a deal worth as much as $950 million. $500 million in cash and stock plus and the promise of another $450 million if certain financial targets were met. 

• The purchase hasn't planned out as they liked though, after a few rounds of layoffs and ultimately earning $175 million of that potential $450 million for a final price tag of $675 million

• In December, almost exactly a year after taking over the position of 'head of maker' from Ynon Kreiz, Courtney Holt stepped down.

My Opinion

Personally, I am incredibly surprised that Disney has laid off people from there digital media division. With the way that NDM is developing I would have thought that this division would have been one of the ones to grow rapidly. It seems that they are merging departments together to achieve one overall goal of making their content both Disney and non-Disney accessible on a number of platforms which is fine but I think that there goals might become a little confusing by merging departments the way they are.