No more live actors in ROL

monothingie

monothingie

Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.
Premium Member
Sir_Cliff said:
Not to get too political, but the issue here is how business and the economy works more generally at the moment and not whether the theme parks are bleeding money. I doubt that Disney's worry here is that they're going to start losing money. Their worry will be that profit margins will be lower than they were last year. And, honestly, if Disney still makes healthy profits but they're lower than expectations, the share price probably will go down and there will be plenty of headlines about a disappointing quarter for Disney.
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Guest experience is second to quarterly earnings in Igertown. The minimum standard is "good enough".
 
Sir_Cliff

Sir_Cliff

Well-Known Member
monothingie said:
Guest experience is second to quarterly earnings in Igertown. The minimum standard is "good enough".
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I agree, but I'm not sure it's just a problem with Iger. Yes, a braver CEO would understand that increasing margins in the short term has longer term negative impacts. But this concern with short term profit margins is far from confined to just Iger.

What is strange about Disney under Iger is all of this penny pinching to increase margins at the expense of guest experience coupled with wildly inflated budgets for new additions to the parks. That, though, probably has something to do with what shows up on quarterly reports and what can be hidden in various ways.
 
Rodan75

Rodan75

Well-Known Member
I thought they added nicely to the show. However, if they hadn't been there...not sure I would have noticed.

It is interesting that they have announced cuts now, but have also announced additions for January and early next year, not sure if that fits the full doom and gloom scenario, or they are just cutting corners where they think the extra staff isn't particularly effective.
 
monothingie

monothingie

Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.
Premium Member
Sir_Cliff said:
I agree, but I'm not sure it's just a problem with Iger. Yes, a braver CEO would understand that increasing margins in the short term has longer term negative impacts. But this concern with short term profit margins is far from confined to just Iger.

What is strange about Disney under Iger is all of this penny pinching to increase margins at the expense of guest experience coupled with wildly inflated budgets for new additions to the parks. That, though, probably has something to do with what shows up on quarterly reports and what can be hidden in various ways.
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In this case, it's the corporate culture created under Iger which has festered into the various divisions within TWDC is responsible for this way of thinking.

It's not just P&R, you see today that Iger came out saying they screwed up with Star Wars over saturation. This is their flagship franchise and in their effort to squeeze it, they hurt it. Unfortunately with the parks you sort of see the same type thing happening, except because of it's large size (number of people, executives, bureaucracy, etc) the trend is harder to spot.
 
Sir_Cliff

Sir_Cliff

Well-Known Member
monothingie said:
In this case, it's the corporate culture created under Iger which has festered into the various divisions within TWDC is responsible for this way of thinking.

It's not just P&R, you see today that Iger came out saying they screwed up with Star Wars over saturation. This is their flagship franchise and in their effort to squeeze it, they hurt it. Unfortunately with the parks you sort of see the same type thing happening, except because of it's large size (number of people, executives, bureaucracy, etc) the trend is harder to spot.
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I do get the issues, but I personally find it hard to personalise it in regards to Iger. If anything, there seemed to be a greater tendency in Disney's corporate culture to wring as much money from everything they could in the last decade or so of Eisner. Remember when Who Wants to be a Millionaire was a hit tv show, so they ran it every night and shoved it in the parks until people quickly got tired of it. Before Iger, they were also releasing DTV sequel after DTV sequel of their biggest hits. Also, remember the Pressler era, particular at Disneyland.

I am not an apologist for Iger, but I think what you're seeing in terms of these petty cutbacks has more to do with how the corporate world works more generally than any unique issues he has brought to the company.
 
monothingie

monothingie

Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.
Premium Member
Sir_Cliff said:
I am not an apologist for Iger, but I think what you're seeing in terms of these petty cutbacks has more to do with how the corporate world works more generally than any unique issues he has brought to the company.
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I forget who it was, maybe @flynnibus maybe posted something about Jeff Bezos and the different culture at Amazon that allowed them to grow by doing exactly the opposite of what Disney has been doing. Probably an apples and oranges comparison, but there are similarities, especially if you compare it to Disney during the 60, 70's and 80's.
 
eddie104

eddie104

Well-Known Member
Sir_Cliff said:
I do get the issues, but I personally find it hard to personalise it in regards to Iger. If anything, there seemed to be a greater tendency in Disney's corporate culture to wring as much money from everything they could in the last decade or so of Eisner. Remember when Who Wants to be a Millionaire was a hit tv show, so they ran it every night and shoved it in the parks until people quickly got tired of it. Before Iger, they were also releasing DTV sequel after DTV sequel of their biggest hits. Also, remember the Pressler era, particular at Disneyland.

I am not an apologist for Iger, but I think what you're seeing in terms of these petty cutbacks has more to do with how the corporate world works more generally than any unique issues he has brought to the company.
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Careful don't let facts get in the way of finding a scapegoat. Iger has had his fair share of blunders with the Disney company but to act like all things he does is not typical CEO behavior is disingenuous.
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
monothingie said:
I forget who it was, maybe @flynnibus maybe posted something about Jeff Bezos and the different culture at Amazon that allowed them to grow by doing exactly the opposite of what Disney has been doing. Probably an apples and oranges comparison, but there are similarities, especially if you compare it to Disney during the 60, 70's and 80's.
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Yeah, the point was it's not the ONLY way things need to be... and its proven repeatedly that bucking that trend is necessary to achieve greatness. In the current day as well... hence the Amazon example. Google also went public with that attitude.
 
W

wdrive

Well-Known Member
Br’er Rabbit said:
There’s like 6 cast members for the the whole show. How beneficial is cutting them? It’s not like there’s a large cast that was being the cost up to ridiculous levels. I don’t understand.
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6 performers onstage, but they'll be a ton of people working behind that like makeup-up artists, costumers etc.

Compared to cutting a meet and greet it's a big saving.

Not that I agree with it whatsoever.
 
DisneyDebRob

DisneyDebRob

Well-Known Member
Rodan75 said:
I thought they added nicely to the show. However, if they hadn't been there...not sure I would have noticed.

It is interesting that they have announced cuts now, but have also announced additions for January and early next year, not sure if that fits the full doom and gloom scenario, or they are just cutting corners where they think the extra staff isn't particularly effective.
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I agree, they do add nicely to the show. The problem is the thousands of people that will now see the show without the actors and will never miss them. For us that have, they add a lot. Reminds me of the yeti. Seeing it in A mode was a wonderful experience but for those who never saw it still think it’s wonderful and never know what they actually missed. Another very sad cutback.
 

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