Disney’s Maker Studios Changes Leadership
There has been some recent changes made to Disney’s Maker Studios, following its move to being under the Disney Consumer Products & Interactive division earlier this year, Courtney Holt, who is the top executive, is stepping down to take on a new job within the company, EVP of media and strategy.
Maker Studios will now be overseen by Andrew Sugerman, who is currently the EVP of the Content & Media division.
Courtney Holt sent out an internal menu saying:
“Merging Maker Studios with Content & Media allows DCPI to continue to expand audiences — across both physical and digital content. And, by taking a broader digital content offering to market, we can truly differentiate ourselves to advertisers and distribution platforms.
In the weeks to come, you’ll hear more about how the teams will come together around an integrated digital content strategy–both domestically and internationally. Andrew is a fantastic leader and I’m energized by his passion for the organization and what we do at Maker,”
According to sources to Variety, the change is happening to try to reduce confusion within the company, following the launch of Sugerman, which has been duplicating work, and the two companies are working together for specific job functions and many believe more layoffs are on the way. Maker laid off 30 people during the summer.
Maker wasn’t originally purchased due to its strengths within YouTube, as a MCN. However YouTube has gone through many changes and companies soon started going direct to YouTubers, rather than working with Maker.
Holt continued to explain some of the new changes in his memo:
“Maker Studios will add to Content & Media’s capabilities around short-form content creation and distribution, making this a natural fit. Also, many of our teams have already integrated with DCPI across sales, finance, communications, marketing, legal, technology, and HR, so it makes sense to pull together the distribution, franchise, network and studio teams in one segment. As a reminder, the Content & Media organization is focused on digital publishing of original short-form and micro-content across various digital brands and social channels, along with physical publishing through Disney Book Group and licensed book titles.”
Disney’s DCIP division has been going through many changes this year, including a drop in revenue and a major shift in its gaming division.