company

Disney has a new captain, and his eyes are on the stars.

Taking over the reins from Bob Iger on Wednesday, new chief executive Josh D’Amaro signaled a bold shift for the entertainment giant: a future where emotional storytelling remains the “North Star,” but cutting-edge technology provides the fuel.

From ESPN to the Magic Kingdom, D’Amaro said in his first letter to employees as the top boss that his mission is to turn a century of nostalgia into a more personal, high-tech reality for fans worldwide.

“Used thoughtfully, it can empower our storytellers, strengthen our capabilities, and help us create more immersive, interactive and personal ways for people to experience Disney,” he wrote in the Wednesday morning note.

D’Amaro also said he wants the sprawling company, which includes film and TV studios, a tourism division, streaming services and live sports programming, to operate as “one Disney,” saying the global businesses all play a role in deepening consumers’ relationship with the Mouse House.

That connection people have with Disney’s brand is key to the company’s future. Consumers have more film, TV and experiences to choose from than ever, meaning Disney needs to distinguish itself among competitors.

To do that, D’Amaro plans to focus on the emotions consumers feel when they encounter Disney. As an example, he reminisced about his own first visit to Disneyland more than 40 years ago.

He recalled the joy on his father’s face as the two rode Peter Pan’s Flight together. And when they soared over the miniature version of London on the ride, he remembered his father leaning in and saying, “See, I told you. It feels like we’re flying!”

“That feeling of flying I had on Peter Pan all those years ago is still real to me,” he wrote in the Wednesday morning note. “And today, I am honored to move forward with all of you — with ambition, optimism, and absolute confidence in what we can build together.”

That new era also included a goodbye to Bob Iger, who handed over the reins Wednesday and now moves into a senior advisory role for the rest of the year before his planned retirement.

The company paid tribute to Iger in a video during Disney’s annual shareholders meeting Wednesday morning.

With clips from his earliest public appearances as Disney’s CEO, a highlight reel of the acquisitions the company made under his tenure and even a nod to his previous career behind the anchor desk, the video highlighted Iger’s legacy at the company and the role he played in bulking up Disney’s franchises, global theme parks, sports and streaming platforms.

When asked in the video about where he’ll go from here, Iger laughed and replied, “To Disneyland.”

In a pre-recorded speech, Iger said his time at Disney has spanned much of his life and that he never expected to become CEO of the company — much less twice.

“Over the years, we experienced extraordinary change and faced real challenges that were particularly profound in the last three years,” Iger said. “It was daunting at times, but through it all, what sustained me was the passion I saw every day from great storytellers, innovators, leaders and people around the world.”

In his parting remarks during that speech, he expressed confidence in the new leadership team of D’Amaro and Dana Walden, who is now president and chief creative officer of the company.

“I will be cheering on Josh, Dana and all of you as I sail off into the sunset,” he said. “So thank you for the trust you placed in me, for the memories we created together, and for allowing me the honor of serving. It has meant more to me than I can say.”

Edison International boosted the pay of its top executives last year despite their responsibility for the safety of the company’s power lines before the devastating Eaton fire, which destroyed a wide swath of Altadena and killed 19 people.

Although the company cut cash bonuses for its senior executives, citing the wildfires, their overall compensation went up substantially as the utility’s profit soared in 2025.

Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of the parent company of Southern California Edison, received $16.6 million in cash, stock and other compensation last year, up 20% from 2024, according to a new company filing.

Steven Powell, president of Southern California Edison, received compensation totaling $6.5 million last year, up from $3.9 million in 2024 — a jump of more than 65%.

The utility’s transmission equipment is suspected of igniting two wildfires on Jan. 7, 2025, including the Eaton fire, which left thousands of families homeless.

The Times earlier detailed how Edison fell behind in performing maintenance on its aging transmission lines — work that it had told state utility regulators was needed. County prosecutors are investigating whether Edison should be criminally charged for its actions before the fire.

The government investigation into the cause of the fire has not been released and Edison has denied that it acted negligently. Pizarro has said a leading theory is that a century-old transmission line, which the company had not used for 50 years, may have briefly reenergized, igniting the fire.

A state law championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019 protects utilities from paying for the damage due to fires sparked by their equipment. When it passed, Newsom touted the law’s requirement that utilities must tie executive compensation to their safety record, saying it would keep them accountable.

The law said that a utility “may” consider tying 100% of executive bonuses to safety performance and “denying all incentive compensation in the event the electrical corporation causes a catastrophic wildfire that results in one or more fatalities.”

Edison said in the new filing that the company’s board members who determine executive compensation decided to decrease the cash bonuses of Pizarro, Powell and Jill Anderson, the utility’s chief operating officer, because of the 2025 wildfires.

Pizarro’s cash bonus was cut by more than $1 million while Powell’s was trimmed by $442,000, according to the filing. Anderson lost out on $244,000.

The company, based in Rosemead, said its decision to cut the three executives’ cash bonuses “was not a reflection of the performance of the company or these executives.”

Despite those cuts, the executives’ total pay of salary, bonuses, stock and other compensation rose, according to the filing. That’s because Edison ties most executive compensation not to safety, but to the company’s financial performance.

And last year, Edison’s profit jumped more than 200% — from $1.3 billion in 2024 to $4.5 billion — despite the Eaton disaster.

The profit increase resulted from the protections from wildfire damage provided to Edison by the 2019 law, as well as a 13% hike in customer electricity rates in October.

The utility attributed the higher electric bills to several increases that it successfully lobbied the California Public Utilities Commission to approve. All five members of the commission were appointed by Newsom.

Scott Johnson, an Edison spokesman, said Tuesday that Pizarro and other company executives holding stock took a financial hit after the fires when the price plummeted.

Before the January fires, Edison International’s stock price was about $80. It fell to $50 the next month. It has recovered much of its value, closing on Tuesday at $72.92.

Edison is facing hundreds of lawsuits by victims of the fire. The suits claim it acted negligently, including by failing to remove the old, dormant transmission line in Eaton Canyon.

The lawsuits also blame Edison for not preventatively shutting down its transmission lines Jan. 7, 2025, despite the dangerous Santa Ana winds.

Pizarro has said the winds didn’t meet the company’s threshold in place at the time for turning off those high-voltage wires.

“Our deepest sympathies remain with all those affected, and this loss reinforces our commitment to public safety and wildfire risk mitigation,” Pizarro and Peter Taylor, chairman of the parent company’s board, wrote in a letter to shareholders that was released with the details on executive compensation.

The two executives added that the company’s “long-term objective remains unchanged: to significantly reduce wildfire risk while improving safety, reliability and affordability of electric service.”

Edison is now offering to compensate Eaton fire victims, including those who lost their homes, family members, businesses and apartments. The offer requires the victims to give up their right to sue the utility. Many survivors say the utility’s offer falls short of what they lost.

Pizarro and Taylor wrote that as of March 4, more than 2,500 claims had been submitted through the program. So far, Edison has extended offers to roughly 600 victims submitting claims and made payments totaling $31 million to 212 of those people, they wrote.

The utility also has begun settling claims of property insurers that covered Altadena homes that were destroyed or damaged, paying out hundreds of millions of dollars. The settlements will help cover the insurance companies’ losses.

Edison has told its shareholders that it expects most or all of those payments to victims and insurers to be covered by a $21-billion state wildfire fund that Newsom and lawmakers created as part of Assembly Bill 1054, which became law in 2019.

Critics say the law went too far, allowing a utility to allegedly spark a deadly wildfire without financial consequences to the company or its executives.

“The predictable outcome of continuing to protect shareholders and executives from the consequences of their own negligence is not theoretical. It is observable. More catastrophic fires,” Joy Chen, executive director of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, wrote in an email to state wildfire fund administrators this year.

Johnson responded, saying,”Our motivation to prevent fires and any incidents is to be good neighbors and provide affordable and resilient energy. There is nothing more important than safety.”

Taylor was on the board committee that approved the compensation package for Pizarro and other top executives. For his work chairing the board, Taylor received cash and stock compensation of more than $500,000.

Johnson said Taylor’s compensation was based on “typical board chair pay” at other utilities.

The new filing said Pizarro’s total compensation of $16.6 million was 75 times the median Edison employee’s total compensation of $220,000.

The present value of Pizarro’s pension is more than $19 million, the report said.

The company is facing a challenge from one of its shareholders — John Chevedden of Redondo Beach, according to the filing.

Chevedden is asking the company’s shareholders to vote to approve his proposal that would require Pizarro and other Edison executives to hold at least 25% of the stock they had received as compensation until they reach retirement age.

He said that requiring utility executives to hold a significant portion of their stock until retirement would focus their efforts on the company’s long-term success.

Chevedden pointed to “unfavorable news reports,” including the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuits against Edison for the Eaton fire and 2022 Fairview blaze, which killed two people in Riverside County.

Edison’s board urged shareholders to vote against Chevedden’s proposal before the company’s annual meeting April 23.

The board said the company already had guidelines that “closely align the interests of officers with the long-term interests of our shareholders.”

Live Nation, the ticketing giant that reached a tentative settlement with the Department of Justice last week, remains under fire.

A coalition of more than 30 states that had joined the original lawsuit filed in 2024 is refusing to accept the $200-million settlement, causing the trial to resume this week in Manhattan’s Federal Court.

The settlement with the Justice Department requires Beverly Hills-based Live Nation to open Ticketmaster to rival ticket sellers, force the company to open select venues to competing promoters and cap service fees at 15%. California is one of the key states still involved in the trial.

But those steps fall short, critics say.

“It’s clear that Live Nation has manipulated the market and made itself untouchable by competitors, hurting artists, hurting fans, hurting venues, all the while, raking in the cash,” said California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta at the Capitol Forum conference last week. “Not because it’s a better service or product, because it acted illegally and created a monopoly.”

U.S. senators have also chimed in. Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar recently introduced the Antitrust Accountability and Transparency Act to strengthen the review of antitrust settlements. Klobuchar said in a release that it’s “clear the American people got the raw end of the deal.”

And Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal released a report that provides new details into the inner workings of Ticketmaster and urges attorneys general across the nation to reject the settlement.

Blumenthal said that the Trump administration’s settlement with Live Nation will keep consumers vulnerable to Ticketmaster’s “anticompetitive practices” and ultimately push “concert tickets farther out of reach for fans.”

The senator’s report, entitled “So Casually Cruel: How Ticketmaster’s Monopoly Supercharges Prices and Fees,” examined over 100,000 documents and Ticketmaster’s revenue data. The report argues that the company leveraged its market control to make tickets available on the resale market before they were available to the general public in an effort to hike prices and boost profits.

“The ticketing market is broken,” Blumenthal said in a statement.

In its own statement, Ticketmaster said Blumenthal’s report “misrepresents how the live events industry works” and that the problem lies in the secondary ticketing industry.

“This is why we’ve long called for industry resale reform, including price caps, while also developing tools to empower artists and protect fans,” Ticketmaster said in a statement.

Recently, Ticketmaster has backed ticketing bills like AB-1349 and advocated to Congress for an industry-wide resale cap.

Sens. Blumenthal and Klobuchar are among many industry experts who say the settlement doesn’t adequately address anticompetitive practices and falls short of protecting consumers from high ticket prices.

Under Klobuchar’s new bill, courts could have 90 days to review public comments and government responses.

“When the government prosecutes antitrust violations, the goal should be to uphold the law, lower prices, and protect consumers and small businesses,” Klobuchar said in the statement.

Lindsay Owens, the executive director of the economic policy nonprofit Groundwork Collaborative, said the settlement will end up being “incredibly costly for concertgoers, performers, and independent venues.”

“California and 35 other states are standing up for Americans who are sick and tired of being ripped off and having to scrimp and save to enjoy a night out,” Owens said in a statement.

This ongoing trial is one of several major legal battles the ticketing giant is facing. The company is also being sued by the Federal Trade Commission and is dealing with a handful of class-action lawsuits from groups of concertgoers.

Times staff writer Meg James contributed to this report.

Walt Disney Co.’s incoming president and chief creative officer, Dana Walden, has unveiled her leadership team, which includes several familiar faces from the company’s film, television and marketing units.

Walden will become Disney’s first woman president on Wednesday. She will report to Josh D’Amaro, who will succeed Bob Iger as Disney’s chief executive, following the company’s annual meeting with shareholders and its high-profile leadership handoff.

Walden’s senior team includes her longtime creative partner, Alan Bergman. As chairman of Disney Entertainment and Studios, Bergman will continue to oversee Disney’s film studios, including production, marketing and distribution.

Bergman also will retain oversight of Disney’s streaming programming in concert with Walden.

Disney executives Joe Earley and Adam Smith were named co-presidents of Disney’s entertainment direct to consumer offerings — Disney+ and Hulu. Both executives will be responsible for strategy and financial performance and report to Walden and Bergman.

Earley and Walden worked together when they were Fox executives; Earley will also serve as head of content strategy.

Smith continues in his role as Disney Entertainment chief product and technology officer. He also will continue to collaborate with ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro on matters related to ESPN and ESPN+.

Debra OConnell will step into a newly-formed role as chairman of Disney Entertainment Television.

She will have a broad TV portfolio that includes ABC Entertainment, Disney-branded cable channels, Hulu Originals as well as programming from National Geographic, 20th Television and 20th Television Animation.

OConnell will continue to oversee ABC News and the ABC-owned television stations, including KABC-TV Channel 7 in Los Angeles.

Disney’s incoming president Dana Walden has established her senior leadership team.

(Richard Shotwell/Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Sean Shoptaw, who serves as executive vice president for games and digital entertainment, and his organization, will shift from Disney Experiences and into Walden’s division.

Shoptaw oversees Disney’s games business and its collaboration with Epic Games to develop a Disney universe connected to Fortnite.

John Landgraf remains chairman of FX and will continue to report directly to Walden.

Asad Ayaz, who is chief marketing and brand officer, has an influential remit across Disney’s various business segments. He will report to D’Amaro and Walden.

“The strength of Disney has always been the emotional connection between our stories and the people who love them,” Walden said in a statement. “As fans engage with Disney across more formats and platforms than ever before, we are bringing together the full power of our creative businesses to build an even more connected experience for audiences.”

NBCUniversal is cutting “Access Hollywood” and several other of its daytime talk shows, effectively ending its first-run syndication business as daytime television atrophies.

The company confirmed that “Access Hollywood,” and its counterpart “Access Live,” will be coming to an end in September. The shows, produced in Los Angeles, are currently hosted by Mario Lopez, Kit Hoover, Scott Evans and Zuri Hall.

Talk shows “Karamo” and “The Steve Wilkos Show,” produced out of NBC’s facility in Stamford, Conn., are also shutting down. The programs have already completed their production for the season and will run through the summer.

NBC previously announced that “The Kelly Clarkson Show” is also ending later this year after seven seasons.

“The Steve Wilkos Show” ran for 19 seasons. The host is a former bouncer for “The Jerry Springer Show.”

Francis Berwick, chairman of Bravo and Peacock unscripted, said in a statement that the company will continue to distribute library episodes of its talk programs and network shows such as “Law & Order.” But NBCU’s days of launching series for daytime and the hour before prime time are over.

“NBCUniversal is making changes to our first-run syndication division to better align with the programming preferences of local stations,” Berwick said. “The company will remain active in the distribution of our existing program library and other off-network titles, while winding down production of our first-run shows.”

“Access Hollywood” was first launched by NBC in 1996 as a competitor to CBS Media Ventures’ “Entertainment Tonight.”

First-run syndication allows producers to sell TV shows to stations on a market-by-market basis, instead of distributing them through a single network. This model was a major success for talk show staples such as Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres.

But streaming has pulled viewers away from traditional television, as viewers can watch their favorite shows and movies anytime on demand. The audience levels needed to generate enough ad revenue to support first-run programming in daytime no longer exists.

Many TV stations are filling their hours with more local news as daytime talk goes away.

It has been nearly three years since Hollywood writers went on a historic strike that lasted 148 days and ushered in an extraordinary period of labor unrest that virtually shut down the film and TV business.

Now, writers are poised to commence another round of bargaining with the major studios on a new three-year film and TV contract. Few observers think the union is girding for another showdown, especially at a time when many of its members are struggling to find work amid media consolidation and belt-tightening.

But in advance of negotiations that begin on Monday , union leaders are eager to dispel any perception that they might have scaled back their demands.

“Our members have shown many times that they’re willing to fight for what we need as a collective group,” WGA West President Michele Mulroney said in an interview. “And there’s no exception here.”

With its current contract expiring on May 1, the WGA hopes to improve its members’ healthcare plans, increase streaming residuals and expand AI protections.

Michele Mulroney speaks as the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) and Writers Guild of America (WGA) join GLAAD in releasing the 11TH Annual GLAAD Studio Responsibility Index at The Village at Ed Gould Plaza Los Angeles LGBT Center in Los Angeles, California, on September 14, 2023.

(Michael Tran/AFP via Getty Images)

Ellen Stutzman, the union’s executive director, said despite popular belief, the studios have weathered the transition from cable television to streaming “very well,” citing their efforts to maximize revenue with streaming bundling, rising subscription fees and advertising revenue.

“Writers are watching as Netflix and Paramount are fighting it out to acquire Warner Bros… Paramount is spending $81 billion,” said Stutzman. “There’s money for a fair deal for writers.”

The union leaders agree that this year’s negotiations are all focused on the sustainability of a writer’s career.

A spokesperson from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the major studios in negotiations, said in a statement that they look forward “to engaging in a constructive and collaborative bargaining process with the WGA. Through continued good-faith dialogue, we are confident we can reach balanced solutions that support talented writers while sustaining the long-term success and stability of our industry and its workforce.”

A top priority for the WGA is to increase the caps that companies contribute to the union’s healthcare plan. Union officials say the current cap has remain unchanged for two decades as healthcare contributions have steadily declined due to fewer writers working.

AI is also top of mind for the WGA.

In 2023, the guild secured various AI protections by establishing that AI isn’t a writer and nothing it produces is considered literary material.

But as major studios start to make deals with AI companies, like Disney’s $1 billion investment into OpenAI’s Sora platform, many writers are concerned about how their work could be used.

“AI is using [studios’] IP, which is stuff that we wrote to license these models,” said John August, the co-host of the “Scriptnotes” podcast and WGA’s negotiating committee co-chair. “With the Sora deal, it seems clear that the companies intend to monetize this IP for use with AI.”

August says the union will be skeptical toward arguments that it’s still too early to seek more safeguards around such a nascent industry, citing the union’s past history with the rise of DVDs and the internet and how profoundly those technologies changed the compensation for writers.

“If you’re taking the work that we created to generate AI outputs, we are owed money. They’re using our work to do something down the road,” added August.

WGA’s negotiating committee also is looking to boost streaming residuals, expand the minimum number of people allowed in a writers’ room and add protections for scribes working on pilots.

“We very much hope that lessons were learned in 2023 and that the AMPTP will come to the table ready to take our proposal seriously and to make a fair deal, and to do that quickly,” Mulroney said. “It provides stability for the companies and for our membership. It’s better for everybody.”

WGA is entering contract negotiations nearly a month after the actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA, began its bargaining sessions. Last week,
the AMPTP said it was extending negotiations another seven days.

Disneyland Resort President Thomas Mazloum has been named chairman of Walt Disney Co.’s experiences division, the company said Tuesday.

Mazloum succeeds soon-to-be Disney Chief Executive Josh D’Amaro as the head of the Mouse House’s vital parks portfolio, which has become the economic engine for the Burbank media and entertainment giant. His purview includes Disney’s theme parks, famed Imagineering division, merchandise, cruise line, as well as the Aulani Resort and Spa in Hawaii.

Jill Estorino will become the head of Disneyland Resort in Anaheim. She previously served as president and managing director of Disney Parks International and oversaw the company’s theme parks and resorts in Europe and Asia.

Estorino and Mazloum will assume their new roles on March 18, the same day as D’Amaro and incoming Disney President and Chief Creative Officer Dana Walden.

“Thomas Mazloum is an exceptional leader with a genuine appreciation for our cast members and a proven track record of delivering growth,” D’Amaro said in a statement. “His focus on service excellence, broad international leadership and strong connection to the creativity that brings our stories to life make him the right leader to guide Disney Experiences into its next chapter.”

Mazloum had been about a year into his tenure at Disneyland. Prior to that, he was head of Disney Signature Experiences, which includes the cruise line. He was trained in hospitality in Europe.

In his time at Disneyland, Mazloum oversaw the park’s 70th anniversary celebration and recently pledged to eliminate time limitations for park-hopping, which are designed to manage foot traffic at Disneyland and California Adventure.

Mazloum will now oversee a 10-year, $60-billion investment plan for Disney’s overall experiences business, which includes new themed lands in Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World. At Disneyland, that expansion could result in at least $1.9 billion of development.

The size of that investment indicates how important the parks are to Disney’s bottom line. Last year, the experiences business brought in nearly 57% of the company’s operating income. Maintaining that momentum, as well as fending off competitors such as Universal Studios, is key to Disney’s continued growth.

In his new role, Mazloum will have to keep an eye on “international visitation headwinds” at its U.S.-based parks, which the company has said will likely factor into its earnings for the fiscal second quarter. At Disneyland Resort, that dip was mitigated by the park’s high percentage of California-based visitors.

Times staff writer Todd Martens contributed to this report.