Peter Rice has been fired as Disney’s head of TV content, and his top lieutenant, Dana Walden, has been appointed in his stead. The move elevates Walden’s status as one of the content industry’s most influential and important executives. It promotes Dana Walden over her long-time friend and FX Networks leader John Landgraf.
ABC Entertainment, ABC News, Disney Branded Television, Disney Television Studios, Freeform, FX, Hulu Originals, National Geographic Content, and Onyx Collective are all under Walden’s umbrella. She will now report to Disney CEO Bob Chapek directly.
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Dana Walden appointed as Disney’s head of TV content
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With Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox in 2019, Rice, who served as head of general entertainment programming, and Dana Walden joined the company. Early Thursday morning, Disney insiders and the entertainment community received shocking word of his dismissal. According to a Disney statement announcing Dana Walden’s elevation, which also stated that Rice is “leaving the company” and that Walden’s appointment “is effective immediately.”
“Dana is a dynamic, collaborative leader and cultural force who in just three years has transformed our television business into a content powerhouse that consistently delivers the entertainment audiences crave. Her well-earned reputation for championing creative talent and developing programming that truly captures the cultural zeitgeist has resulted in hit after hit, from ABC’s ‘Abbott Elementary’ and Onyx Collective’s Academy Award-winning ‘Summer of Soul,’ to Hulu Originals like ‘Only Murders in the Building,’ ‘Dopesick,’ ‘The Dropout’ and ‘The Kardashians.’ She and Peter have worked closely together for years to create the best programming in the industry, and I can think of no one better than Dana to lead Disney General Entertainment to even greater heights.” – Disney CEO Bob Chapek
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Given that the rumor mill inside Disney was just starting to quiet down after months of turbulence swirling around Chapek, the timing of the surprising move to remove Rice seems puzzling. With his political efforts in Florida over the state’s anti-LGBT legislation, the Disney CEO stepped into a PR problem for the corporation, which he subsequently made worse with company pronouncements that infuriated many of Disney’s almost 200,000 workers. According to many sources, the decision was solely based on business and strategy and had nothing to do with Rice’s personal behavior.
Source – Deadline
