Disney CEO Bob Chapek Touts Company as ‘Most Powerful Force in the Industry’ at Upfronts

Mark Bozon, who spent 12 years at Apple in creative and gaming executive roles, has been hired by Disney in a senior post to help oversee the company’s push into the metaverse.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at LargeDon’t call it a comeback. But thanks to sports, ever-expanding drama franchises and a handful of new hits, the Big 4 broadcast networks managed to avoid another year-to-year collapse during the now-concluded TV season.Football once again ruled primetime, led by NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” while “Thursday Night Football” showed up twice on Nielsen’s top-rated series’ chart due to a quirk of some games airing only on NFL Network, and others simulcast on both Fox and NFL. (This won’t be an issue next year, as “Thursday Night Football” moves to Amazon Prime Video — and off this chart.)But beyond that, network TV’s embrace of procedural dramas is giving broadcasters a fighting chance at survival.

Bob Bakish, CEO of Paramount Global, has canceled a scheduled appearance at a media conference this afternoon due to illness. The chief executive had been slated for an afternoon Q&A keynote session at J.P. Morgan’s 47th Annual Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference in Boston.

Hulu is offering new and select returning subscribers its basic, ad-supported tier for $1 a month for their first three months.

Twenty-four hours before his win for Best Documentary Feature would result in one of the most powerful speeches of this year’s Oscar night, Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson and his Summer of Soul team gathered at an intimate brunch in the picturesque gardens of Dana Walden’s Brentwood estate. Walden was there, along with Peter Rice, Matthew Greenfield, David Greenbaum and other high-level Disney executives. Even Disney CEO Bob Chapek put in an appearance.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at LargeThe venue was the same, but Paramount Global’s inaugural upfront presentation at Carnegie Hall took a very different approach compared to the CBS presentations of old.Jo Ann Ross, longtime CBS ad sales chief, still opened the show without pomp and circumstance, introducing an event that was designed to run an hour playing off the them of CBS’ signature newsmagazine “60 Minutes.” In reality, it ran about an hour and 20 minutes.In what has become a theme of the upfronts this year, media buyers spent much of the hour watching pre-taped pieces, sprinkled with in-person pitches from talent and executives. Rather than focusing on new series clips, it was “60 Minutes” anchors producing and hosting what were in essence branded custom content videos for their corporate parent.

David Furnish, Elton John’s longtime partner, will direct the documentary alongside R.J. Cutler, who directed the Billie Eilish documentary “The World’s a Little Blurry” for Apple TV+ last year, which earned four Emmy nominations.

Rita Ferra, president of ad sales for Disney, said the forthcoming ad-supported tier of Disney+ will have a less “robust” amount of ads compared with Hulu. That disparity, at least initially, will mainly be because about 65% of viewing on the streaming service is for movies, which don’t lend themselves to commercial interruption.

EXCLUSIVE: Disney Original Documentary and Disney+ have won the rights to a big feature documentary package, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: The Final Elton John Performances And the Years That Made His Legend. No one would comment, but we hear the docu, from Academy Award-nominee R.J. Cutler as well as filmmaker (and longtime Elton John partner) David Furnish, sold for about $30 million.

Bob Iger has become an investor in and advisor to Gopuff, a nine-year old commerce platform first started by two Philadelphia college students to deliver late-night snacks, hookahs and tobacco products.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorBob Iger, Disney’s former CEO and chairman, is now a part-owner of Gopuff, a company that provides quick-delivery services in 1,200 cities worldwide that counts Selena Gomez among its investors.The amount of Iger’s investment in Gopuff wasn’t disclosed. He will become an adviser to the company’s co-founders and co-CEOs Yakir Gola and Rafael Ilishayev and the rest of the executive team to “help deepen Gopuff’s consumer engagement and growth globally,” according to a statement.Gopuff, founded in 2013, says it has raised $4 billion to date — and has a $15 billion valuation.

David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros Discovery, proclaimed the merged company as essentially the fifth broadcast network, and repeated his vow that the company would overcome any skepticism about its prospects.

Unlike the upfronts themselves, Jimmy Kimmel was not back on-stage live in NYC today for the first time since 2019. Having tested positive for Covid-19 again, the late-night host had to change plans and appear virtually to take a flamethrower to some of Disney’s executives, streaming dreams, and offerings old and new.

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorJimmy Kimmel had zingers aplenty for companies across the TV spectrum at Disney’s upfront presentation on Tuesday, even though a positive COVID test kept the late-night host from appearing in person.As always, Kimmel didn’t hold back at his bosses in his 10-minute standup bit that was beamed in live to the event held in a giant tent at Manhattan’s Pier 36. He noted that he’s been doing his much-anticipated comedy bits for 19 years.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek opened Disney’s upfront in New York by telling the crowd of advertisers in attendance that the company “the most powerful force in the industry” and “the most enduring and beloved name in entertainment.”

With Marvel’s global juggernaut Doctor Strange missing in action in China, Disney CEO Bob Chapek called the situation there “very fluid and very complicated, both from a business standpoint and from a political standpoint.”

fiscal second-quarter earnings conference call Wednesday afternoon, an investor asked CEO Bob Chapek what was holding the company back from expanding it as an all-in-one service. Chapek said that Disney is trying to preserve the “huge” cash flow generated by its linear networks before jumping into a direct to consumer (DTC) decision like that.“At the same time, we’re very conscious of our ability to go more aggressively into the [direct to consumer] area of ESPN,” said Chapek.

While the idea of ESPN going “over the top” as a stand-alone streaming offering has been bruited about for years, Disney CEO Bob Chapek enthused about the scenario and describe it as an inevitability during the company’s quarterly earnings call.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterDisney has previously revealed it has 500 shows in the pipeline outside of the U.S., but on Wednesday, the company broke down for the first time how those planned local-language programs are being dispersed throughout global regions.According to Christine M. McCarthy, senior executive vice president and chief financial officer, 140 of those shows are in the works in the Asia/Pacific region, including Southeast Asia; 150 are in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) territories); 100 are set up in India; and 200 are being developed for Latin America.Click here to sign up for Variety‘s free Strictly Business newsletter covering earnings, financial and investment news, and more.Elsewhere on the call, CEO Bob Chapek was pressed by analysts on another international topic: Disney’s lack of traction in recent months with getting its movies approved for release in China.