Disney: Life Under The Microscope Eisner Says Changes Spotlighted Because Of Company’s High Profile
The departures of Jeffrey Katzenberg, Richard Frank and other Walt Disney executives would be on “page 12 of the local shopper” if they had happened anywhere else, company boss Michael D. Eisner said in an interview last week.
Eisner was commenting for the first time about a stream of executive departures that, despite Disney’s success across the drawing board, has led to reports of disarray in management.
“We have 70,000 people working in the company. People come and they go. We have an all-star team of executives in all of our areas. Sometimes, we have too many all-stars, too few positions for all the allstars,” said Eisner, chairman and chief executive officer of the Walt Disney Company.
“But of course, we’re very visible and Disney is a company that everybody in the country knows about. So, when there’s any kind of movement away from normalcy, it gets written about,” Eisner said.
While “The Lion King” and an array of theme parks, television shows and other projects helped generate more than $10 billion in revenue for Disney last year, personnel changes at this traditionally stable company have generated reports of disarray.
In April 1994, the company’s president and chief operating officer, Frank G. Wells, was killed in a helicopter crash. After Katzenberg, the No. 2 executive, wasn’t promoted, he left in August and formed a studio with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen.
Over the past 18 months, more than a dozen Disney executives have left or changed roles.
“The fact of the matter is that anything that has happened to us in the last year, if it happened in any other company in America, if it was covered at all it would be on page 12 of the local shopper,” Eisner said.
Eisner was interviewed before a press conference at Carnegie Hall on next year’s scheduled opening of the Disney Institute, a resort and educational facility located at the Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Fla.
Of the executive changes, Eisner said that Wells’ death “left us with a necessity to reorganize; we were going to do it anyway.”
The most recent departure at Disney was by Frank, chairman of the company’s television and communications division, who resigned last Friday amid reports of friction with Eisner. Disney’s TV shows include “Home Improvement,” “Empty Nest” and “Regis & Kathie Lee.”
His replacement, Dennis Hightower, headed European and Middle Eastern operations for Disney Consumer Products. Hightower’s hiring surprised industry observers because he has no previous television experience.
“Everything I have been associated with has often surprised people,” said Eisner, who took over Disney in 1984 and helped rejuvenate the then-struggling company.
“The obvious is not a surprise. The mediocre is not a surprise. My appointment at Disney was the biggest surprise of all.”
Also Wednesday, Eisner declined comment on a report in Tuesday’s Hollywood Reporter that Disney has teamed with ex-20th Century Fox Inc. chief Barry Diller in takeover talks with CBS Inc.