Nelson Peltz and his band of dissident shareholders continue to wage war on Disney, including sending a letter to shareholders that criticizes the current leadership of the company. Plus, FX head John Landgraf says that peak TV is over. What does that really mean? Kim Masters and Matt Belloni investigate.
A Mickey Mouse clapback? Following Peltz and company’s attempts to sway shareholders, Disney released an animated video featuring several of the studio’s characters instructing voters to select company nominees. “It was a very Disney presentation they sent around. It was basically saying check out all of our creative wins for the past year. They're even using Professor Ludwig Von Drake, a Disney character, to walk shareholders through their voting card,” Belloni says.
More: Disney proxy battle heats up ahead of shareholder meeting
Has peak TV finally ended? After years of sounding the alarm, FX Chairman John Landgraf says peak television is dead. “Now the strike is a big reason for that. A lot of shows either paused or didn't get off the ground because of the strike. But this retraction was happening before the strike. And I think it's going to continue into this year, despite the fact that now the strikes are over,” Belloni speculates.
Netflix belt tightening to blame? Landgraf says that it all started with the streamer’s decision to “change their public-facing Wall Street metric from global subscribers and ARPU [average revenue per user] to profit.” “It had to focus on profitability rather than just growing subscriber numbers, which necessarily translates into pulling back on the volume of content, and then everybody followed,” Belloni explains.