Disney Entertainment Television Lays Off 140 Staffers, Including 13% of National Geographic Workforce

Update: In the wake of layoffs across Disney Entertainment Television, unscripted divisions for ABC and Hulu have been combined, leading to the exits of top execs, TheWrap has learned.

Those departing include Belisa Balaban, who served as Hulu Originals’ SVP of original documentaries and unscripted series, as well as Tiffany Faigus, who served as the SVP of unscripted and alternative entertainment for ABC Entertainment and Walt Disney Television Alternative.

Original story: Disney Entertainment Television is undergoing a new round of layoffs impacting roughly 140 staffers, TheWrap has learned.

The cuts, which are attributed to adjusting team numbers across Disney’s TV brands, will impact 2% of the Disney Entertainment Television workforce. Impacted brands include National Geographic, Freeform, Disney-owned TV stations and marketing and publicity, though no full teams are being eliminated.

While the layoffs impacted several divisions, they were felt the hardest by National Geographic, whose staff was reduced by approximately 13%.

The cuts are a result of a larger shift from Disney to focus on quality over quantity, with the layoffs serving to help transition the company into this new mindset. The layoffs were done surgically to minimize the amount of impacted staffers, an individual with knowledge of the situation told TheWrap.

Disney CEO Bob Iger first revealed this planned shift a year ago, on the heels of releases of Walt Disney tentpoles like “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” “The Little Mermaid” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” whose large budgets somewhat outweighed their theatrical revenue.

“Looking to Disney’s entertainment studios, we’re focused on improving the quality of our films and on better economics, not just reducing the number of titles we release, but also the cost per title,” Iger said during the earnings call for the third quarter of 2023.

He added that Disney would be aiming to maximize “the full impact of our titles by embracing the multiple distribution windows at our disposal, enabling consumers to access their content in multiple ways.”

The recent cuts also follow layoffs across the industry, with Fox Entertainment laying off 30 staffers as part of a company-wide restructuring. CEO Rob Wade similarly attributed the cuts to “aligning our business operations, ambitious growth strategies and the dynamics of our industry today.”

Deadline first reported the news.

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