And Then There Was One, as Disney Picks Single Digital Leader
Earlier today, Disney said what is likely not much of a shock to anyone — that it was handing over the reins of its interactive division to one of its two co-presidents, Jimmy Pitaro.
That means John Pleasants, who was the other co-president and was located in Silicon Valley, is leaving the kingdom, merging the games and media units under one leader in Los Angeles. Pleasants, as happens in these kinds of things, will be a strategic consultant to Disney Interactive.
The reorganization of the unit comes three years after Pitaro, a former Yahoo media exec, and Pleasants, who came to Disney via its acquisition of Playdom, were paired. Disney Interactive recently reported its second quarterly profit of $16 million on sales of $396 million, in what has been an uphill effort over the past decade for the entertainment giant.
Under the regime of former CEO Michael Eisner — many digital moons ago and which I covered since I am so dang old — Disney bought search engine Infoseek and tried to create a portal called Go.com. That failed, and was one of many efforts to define the media company’s Web goals. More recently, in 2008, Disney gathered most of its Internet properties under Steve Wadsworth.
Then came the pairing of Pitaro and Pleasants. And now, just Pitaro.
Disney said it “will move forward with a singular strategy for driving revenue and advertising across key platforms and franchises,” such as Disney Infinity — a big Pleasants project — and Club Penguin.
