The strategy is working.
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On Wednesday morning, Team Disney received 183 votes of confidence from the Television Academy on how the Mouse House is performing as the company expands TV content production to unprecedented scale and with a great diversity of program genres and formats.
The fact that the 76th annual Emmy Awards nominations, unveiled July 17, were spread far and wide among Disney’s television units was the most significant achievement on a day that brought a lot of good news for the divisions under the purview of Disney Entertainment co-chairman Dana Walden.
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In the history of the medium, no company has tried to manage such a high-wire act of producing and commissioning content tailored for audiences around the world. Gaining the ability to do just that was the central thesis of Disney’s 2019 acquisition of 21st Century Fox.
The Emmy nominations news “genuinely validated our approach, which has been to program the very best in class shows across our platforms and our studios,” Walden told Variety . “Ultimately, it’s all accruing to the benefit of our streaming platforms where these shows will live on forever. I’m enormously proud of our teams and proud to see what the creative community has said about the work we’re doing across the board.”
Disney’s bumper crop of Emmy mentions was anchored by a historic showing from FX, with 93 noms. Voters also spread the love to shows that have become synonymous with the new Disney TV regime: Hulu/20th Television’s “Only Murders in the Building” (21 noms), ABC’s “Abbott Elementary” (9), Disney+’s “Ahsoka” (5) and documentaries such as Disney+’s “Jim Henson Idea Man” (5) and National Geographic’s “Queens,” which nabbed a narration nom for Angela Bassett.
Walden gave a hat tip to her longtime colleague John Landgraf for leading the FX brand to extraordinary heights. She sees the outpouring of recognition for FX’s big swings like “Shogun” and genre-defying “The Bear” as evidence that the brand has transcended its roots as a linear basic cable channel to be meaningful to viewers in a world of ever-expanding streaming choices.
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“Think about the history and trajectory of FX starting out as a basic cable channel that has evolved into this powerhouse, prestige brand that is fortifying Hulu and cementing its place in the future,” Walden said, adding that she remembers the channel’s humble early days after its launch in 1993. “It’s extraordinary.”
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The Emmy haul in recent years has also laid to rest the question of whether the Disney brand was big enough to include shows that travel on the knife’s edge ala “The Bear” and “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans.” Walden credits her boss, Disney CEO Bob Iger, for having the vision and the courage of his convictions to see it through.
“It’s a testament to the vision of Bob Iger and how he saw the Fox brands fitting in to the Walt Disney Co.,” Walden said. “He saw them as being so additive and ultimately translating into an enormous value proposition for consumers and subscribers.”
Walden emphasizes that while Disney’s TV group has many mouths to feed, volume itself is never the primary focus.
“We’re not trying to do to the most shows, we’re trying to do the best shows,” Walden said.
The care and feeding of Hulu has been a huge priority for Walden’s group since it was formed post-merger in 2019. Disney is in the midst of a prolonged negotiation with Comcast about buying out the latter’s roughly 30% stake in the streaming platform that launched in 2008 as a joint venture of NBCUniversal and Fox. Walden declined to comment on the status of those negotiations.
Hulu’s role in Disney’s TV strategy is crucial to providing them a hub for adult-focused content that casts a wide net. FX serves as a cornerstone of Hulu for premium fare, but Hulu also has its own Emmy dynamo in “Only Murders in the Building,” which snared 21 bids. The offbeat hourlong dramedy starring Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez is a prime example of how Hulu is an important engine for the larger Disney enterprise.
To wit, Walden observes, five of the eight nominees for best comedy series come from Disney, and all of them can be found on Hulu.
The response from viewers and Emmy voters to offbeat entries like “Only Murders” and FX’s “Reservation Dogs” is also a telling example of how viewers seek out entertainment in times of political and cultural strife.
“To me it’s proof that no matter what the circumstances, people want to escape, they want to laugh or disappear into a compelling drama,” Walden said. “It says a lot to me about the perseverance and focus that our creative partners put on making people laugh. It’s good to remember how important comedy is in our daily diet.”
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