When You Wish Upon a Star … Your TV Deals Come True?

In the late 1980s and ’90s, a struggling Disney righted the ship by rediscovering its magic. Striking gold with television certainly helped, too.

“When I joined Disney, I took over as CFO. And it was a broken company. And I’d never really seen a broken company before.”

That’s how Gary Wilson, speaking early in the first episode of the new Vulture–Vox Media Podcast Network show Land of the Giants: The Disney Dilemma, characterizes his first impression of the ailing organization after becoming part of Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s C-suite in 1985. The company — the brand, really — had lost its way, creatively and financially, and Eisner & Co. had been brought in to change course.

Where that would eventually lead Disney was a historic $19 billion acquisition of the media company Capital Cities/ABC in 1995. That deal turbocharged its TV production and broadcasting capabilities, laying the groundwork for the massive success of ABC, ESPN, and the Disney Channel. As former Disney TV executive Anne Sweeney describes it in The Disney Dilemma:

“This was a seminal moment in the history of media because this is a studio buying a platform. They had broadcast, they had cable, and they had radio. And we’ve seen what’s happened since, you know, the consolidation started, but I think there was a realization of controlling your destiny.”

But before that could happen, Disney had to regain its focus. In the mid-1980s, the company’s chief strategic officer Larry Murphy conducted some market research on the brand. As he notes in the episode, what he heard back provided all the insight they needed:

“I’ve never seen anything like it. ‘Enthusiastic’ is an understatement. People loved Disney. They loved the park experience. They loved the animated films … It was the most effusive respect and love and appreciation for a brand you could imagine … Almost every one of them said, in so many words, Disney is magic … So what really drove the strategy going forward was: Is this magical or not?”

How exactly Disney re-created that magic, reversed its fortunes, and became a TV juggernaut (owning ESPN helped) is the subject of The Disney Dilemma episode one, “Disney Is a TV Company,” hosted by our own TV reporter and Buffering columnist Joe Adalian.

You can listen below or wherever you get your podcasts — and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any of the six-episode series, which will go on to explore Disney’s theme parks (what happens when imagination is replaced with IP?), scuffling animation operation (what were they thinking with Wish?), studio acquisition successes and stumbles (why has Marvel mostly worked and Star Wars mostly not?), and more. Please keep your arms and legs inside at all times, we hope you enjoy the ride.