How Bob Iger plans to make Disney profitable by end of 2024

“We’re still losing money on streaming,” said Bob Iger. “We need to turn that around,” he added, calling streaming “the future” of Disney’s business.

Bob Iger, who retook the reins of the Walt Disney Co. as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in November 2022, would prefer to stick to his contract and hold the office for no more than 2 years.

On CNBC’s show “Squawk on the Street,” Iger also made some key comments on the company’s plans and December quarter’s performance.

After his stint, he said that he would work with the board to choose the best successor who can take his strategies forward and build on them.

It may be recalled, Iger returned as CEO in November last year following a challenging two-year tenure by his handpicked successor, Bob Chapek. However, after two years at the helm of the company, Chapek was ousted by the board members in favor of Iger, who was brought back to replace Chapek.

“We thought we made the right decision when we chose Bob (Chapek) in 2020. The board decided in November he wasn’t the right person for the job and made a change,” Iger said.

Focus On 'The Future' With Streaming

Iger's to priority is to make Disney’s streaming business profitable by the end of 2024. To achieve this, he said that the company will refrain from getting distracted by focusing on subscriber numbers. Instead of providing guidance on its subscriber numbers, Disney will henceforth focus only on revenue, he said.

“We’re still losing money on streaming,” said Iger. “We need to turn that around,” he added, calling streaming “the future” of Disney’s business.

In December quarter, Disney's video streaming service Disney+ Hotstar lost 3.8 million paid subscribers, due to the recent price hike. This was the biggest-ever quarterly subscriber decline since it started revealing paid member numbers in April 2020.

Disney intends to strengthen its franchise with sequels to popular films like Frozen and Toy Story.

Profitability is on top of Iger's to-do list

Profitability is a key factor that Iger aims to achieve during his tenure. As part of this, several reorganization strategies were announced earlier this week.

Among them was a $3 billion per year content-costs reduction plan. This was an attempt to streamline its content portfolio, in terms of both content and volume.

Moreover, Disney also announced that it is shrinking its workforce by 7,000 positions to cut costs as well as make operations leaner and more optimal.

These restructuring moves also ended a proxy dispute between Disney and activist investor Nelson Peltz. Peltz was a critic of Disney’s $71 billion acquisition of Fox in 2019 as well as the unsuccessful appointment of Bob Chapek. Disney was pleased with this development.

“We are pleased that our Board and management can remain focused without the distraction of a proxy contest, and we have tremendous faith in Bob Iger’s leadership and the transformative vision for Disney’s future he set forth yesterday,” the company expressed in a statement on Thursday.