Robert Iger, CEO of Walt Disney Company since 2005, plays hard to get what he wants.
Case #1: Not Child Friendly
The New York Times reports today that under pressure from Disney The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood was evicted from the Judge Baker childrens mental health center in Boston that housed and sponsored it for a decade. The Harvard Medical School professor who oversaw the Campaign, psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint, also co-wrote books with Bill Cosby.
The campaign had for years fought Disney’s marketing of the Baby Einstein videos — short videos filled with colors, nature pictures, music and puppets — as educational; it contended that there was no evidence that babies learned anything. Indeed, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time for children under 2.
After the campaign filed a Federal Trade Commission complaint, Disney dropped the word “educational” from its marketing. But that was not enough for campaign officials. They forwarded their research to lawyers who threatened a class-action suit, prompting Disney to offer refunds of $15.99 for up to four Baby Einstein DVDs per household.
Barely two weeks after the story of the refunds appeared, Dr. Poussaint said, he and Dr. Linn were called before the Baker center’s executive board.
Dr. Poussaint wrote the board:
“You told me that the mission of C.C.F.C. — to protect children from harmful exploitation by corporate marketers — is not in line with the Judge Baker mission. Indeed, we were told that we could no longer criticize any corporations, even if they were exploiting children.”…
“It’s really chilling, that any corporation, and particularly one marketing itself as child friendly, would lean on a children’s center,” said Dr. Lynn, a psychiatry instructor at Harvard Medical School. “And it’s heartbreaking that a children’s center would cave in.”
Case #2: Democrat Friendly Exceeds Shareholder Friendly
Disney CEO Robert Iger is known for his support and funding of Democrat politicians and causes. For example, his 2009 political contributions counted by Open Secrets include $25,000 each to the Democratic Senatorial and Congressional Campaign Committees, a $1000 to Walt Disney World’s Florida-home Republican governor and US Senate primary contender Charlie Crist, then another $14,600 to Democrat Senators.
Iger and Disney have refused to respond to why Disney refuses to sell the distribution rights or to re-air its subsidiary ABC-TV’s docudrama The Path To 9/11. The National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project, a Disney shareholder, has been speaking out at Disney shareholder meetings, including today’s, “warning Disney shareholders that CEO Robert Iger's progressive political bias puts investors at risk.”
"Iger's rejection of several offers to sell the distribution rights of the ABC-TV docudrama, The Path to 9/11, is a sign that his personal political views are affecting business decisions," said Free Enterprise Project director Dr. Tom Borelli, who has raised the issue personally with Iger at past shareholder meetings.
Big Hollywood offered more background.
A $30+ million project that aired without sponsors on two September nights in 2006, The Path to 9/11 dramatized the historical thread that connected the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Islamic attacks on American interests throughout the ‘90s, and the terrorism of that fateful morning in 2001.
Prior to its premiere, the producers at ABC were so proud of the impending project that they had high hopes of airing Path every 9/11 anniversary and showing it in schools across this country as an engaging educational tool – until an accusation of “conservative bias” (horrors!) on the part of the filmmakers quickly spun into liberal hysteria that the project was actually a “well-honed propaganda operation” on the part of a secretive, right-wing network-within-a-network….
Clinton administration alumni, fearing the miniseries would highlight their flaccid response to the growing threat of Islamic extremism and tarnish their political legacy, pulled out all the stops to suppress it. The show very nearly wasn’t aired at all – Robert Iger and Disney were pressured by the Senate Democratic leadership, led by Harry Reid – it hasn’t aired since, and today you cannot even obtain it on DVD.
And why not? Disney President and CEO Robert Iger explains without elaboration that it’s a “business decision.” Oh, well then, case closed. Not only does he refuse to re-air The Path to 9/11 or release a DVD, but he has no intention of even selling the DVD rights to another company. I’m no financial wizard, but I can recognize that, as business decisions go, willfully taking a $30+ million bath on your product when there is a vast audience hungry for it and distributors making offers, is not one of the more lucrative marketing strategies I’ve ever heard of.
Case #3: Lining Own Pockets at Others' Expense
Disney is a leading member of the US travel association’s lobby group, Discover America, that spent millions of dollars to pass its Travel Promotion Act, that was finally recently approved by the Congress and signed by President Obama. It will charge a $10 fee to travelers to the US that will go into a fund to promote tourism to the US. I was on the trail of its misrepresentations, starting in 2007. Tim Carney, muckraker at the Washington Examiner, joined in. Then, in February 2008, Jeff Birnbaum at the Washington Post wrote a 6,746 word expose Mickey Goes To Washington: Lobbyists for America’s richest mouse set out to persuade Congress to scare up $200 million to promote U.S. tourist destinations. In my summary post, which links to my earlier posts on this money-grab by the $1-trillion US tourism industry, I wrote:
The points I’ve been driving home are all there: The statistics Discover America ignores about the strong recovery of post-9/11 international tourism; The cynical marketing by Geoff Freeman, Discover America’s PR specialist; The “inside-beltway” lobbying that swells our federal expenditures and enriches lobbyists and Congressional staff’s future job prospects.
Exposed, the bill stalled until the Democrat Congressional sweep of 2008.
Foreign visitors will surely be thrilled by the added fee. Disney and its travel industry cohorts certainly are at getting others to pay for its own self-promotion efforts.
Isn't that how it works when you go to Disney Land?
