Candle Media Co-Chief Kevin Mayer On Disney Issues Like Succession, ESPN’s Future, Streaming Economics & More: “Bob Has His Hands Full”
deadline.comStreaming‘s challenging economics will make industry consolidation “inevitable,” in the view of Candle Media Co-CEO Kevin Mayer, but Big Tech and Hollywood are likely to remain in separate camps.
Mayer shared his outlook in an appearance at the Yahoo Finance Invest conference in New York. Most of the 15-minute sit-down focused on the Walt Disney Co., where Mayer was a longtime senior exec and now serves as an advisor to CEO Bob Iger. “Bob has his hands full,” Mayer said of the myriad issues facing Disney, from activist investors to restless shareholders to various moving strategic parts.
The 72-year-old top exec is “very capable and multifaceted. He has a lot of range, so he can handle it. … You have to be disciplined, and Bob’s always been very strategic.” As to Disney’s lagging stock price, Mayer said the market is “reacting to uncertainty” about the future of Hulu, ESPN, the leadership of the company and other aspects of the media giant.
During his stint running the strategic planning group at Disney, Mayer engineered a historic run of M&A deals, including the acquisitions of Marvel, Pixar and most of 21st Century Fox.
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