AGGIELIFE
Page 4
THE BATTALION
Disney coping with recent financial difficulties
People In the News
BURBANK, Calif. (AP)—The Walt
Disney Co. has liberally applied salve to
the public relations pinpricks and larger
financial wounds suffered in the last year
or so. Yet even as the entertainment giant
tries to heal, new sores develop.
After a disappointing 1999 finan
cial performance, a public airing of
dirty laundry in court and other public
ity headaches, Disney was hit last week
by the resignation of studio chair Joe
Roth — the latest in a string of execu
tive departures.
It all adds up to the shakiest times for
the company since Michael Eisner took
over 15 years ago.
Disney earned what sounds like a
healthy $ 1.3 billion in 1999. But that was
down from $1.8 billion in 1998, itself a
stagnant earnings year, and revenues
showed only a marginal gain. Though the
company’s stock has rebounded a bit,
trading at about $35 a share, it remains off
about 20 percent from its high in 1998.
Considering Disney’s rapid expansion
and stellar returns under Eisner previous
ly, and given the comparative runup else
where in the stock market, it’s small won
der the House of Mickey has been
“One problem is
people's closets
are just too full
of this stuff'
— Tom Wolzien
Industry Analyst
looking a little ramshackle to investors.
While conceding the problems, Eis
ner said Disney’s difficulties have been
exaggerated and the company has made
broad moves to promote growth.
“When you’re as successful and big
as we are and you’re liked as much as we
are and your products have as much
emotion behind them as ours, any stum
ble is elevated to a complete fall,” Eis
ner said. “But in the area of creation of
content, there’s no company as stable as
this company.”
A spate of problems converged to put
the company down, including overkill on
Disney products and home videos, spi
raling film costs, heavy spending on
theme parks and operations bloated by ac
quisitions, ABC television among them.
Other than The Lion King, Disney’s
recent animated films had not produced
durable merchandising characters to join
Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and the stu
dio’s other icons.
“One problem is, people’s closets are
just too full of this stuff,” Tom Wolzien,
an industry analyst for Sanford C. Bern
stein & Co, said.
Flat earnings are expected to continue
for the first half of tliis year, but analysts
said Disney should begin to show im
provement after that as some of the com
pany’s turnaround measures kick in.
Disney is slashing administrative and
film-production costs and reducing the
number of licensees and product lines at
studio stores to better control sales. Slow
out of die gate in its onl ine and D VI) pres
ence, Disney now is rolling out films in
the newer video format and building up
its Web presence after acquiring Internet
portal Infoseek.
The company Inis scrapped its peri
odic video reissues of classic animated
films. Most of those mov ies now will be
available year-round, w ith 10 top titles,
such as Snow White, being w ithheld for
an annual re-release.
Besides money and merchandise
troubles, Disney went through cost!)
settlements with Michael Ovit/, the
Hollywood deal broker who departed
as'Eisner’s second-in-command alter
barely a year, and former studio chief
Jeffrey Kat/enberg. who sued for
breach of contract.
Roth, Katzenberg's successor as
Disney studio chief became the latest in
a line of top brass to depart the compa
ny in the last few years an executive
exodus analysts blame on Eisner's
heavy-handed management st\ le.
“Have you heard of any executive
who’s happy working w ith Michael I is-
ner?” Robert Bucksbaum, a film indus
try analyst for Reel Source Ine., said.
“It’s not easy working for somebod)
w ho so much likes to be in control."
Eisner insists that a company the si/e
of Disney inevitably gets raided and that
the studio has retained a deep bench of
veteran talent.
Actress Redgrave
to perform at Globe
■ft
REDGRAVE
icatre, the Globe.
LONDON (AP)
— Vanessa Red
grave will take
on one of her
most intriguing
roles yet — play
ing the decidedly
male magician-
ruler Prospero in
“The Tempest” at
Shakespeare's
this summer.
“I do want to find things for great
actors, and Vanessa’s a great actor,
male or female." Mark Rylance, artis
tic director of the Globe, said Tues
day in announcing the restored Eliz
abethan playhouse's summer lineup.
Redgrave. 62. on “vocal rest"
because of a virus, was unable to
Rylance said casting Redgrave
as the exiled magician, one of the
Bard's most melancholy parts.
MW
always had a very
st in people in ex
ile and has often encountu
pie who are in that very s ’
that Prospero is in," Ry
“I think she'll bring hen
of the world's troubles tot
Editorial Carti
treated for ca*
RICHMOND. Va. (AP) — :
Prize-winning cartoonist
Nelly is undergoing tre_
lymphoma and will cut
schedule of editorial
Mac Nelly. 52, recen
on his Web site that he j]
treated as an outpatients
Hopkins Hospital in
‘We expect a full reco*%
Website posting said.
While he is undergo^
ment. MacNelfy will continu
duce his nationally syndics
toon strip, "Shoe," and ft
humorist Dave Barry^aee
umn, the posting said.
MacNeily. who lives invi
won the Pulitzer Prize for i
tonal cartoons in 19721
and 1985.
future
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