Walt Disney and The Disneyland Corporate Roller Coaster Ride

The Walt Disney Company, along with its many subsidiaries, is the second largest media conglomerate in the world. It is divided up into four business segments which include Media Networks, Parks and Resorts, Studio Entertainment, and Consumer Products.

The genius behind the magic was of course, Walt Disney himself, who arrived in California in 1923 with nothing more than a naïve, but genuine belief in following one's dreams. While in Kansas City, he had created a cartoon he called "Alice in Wonderland" which he believed could be a successful pilot film that he could sell to a distributor. It wasn't long after Disney's arrival in California that he became successful with Alice in Wonderland. A New York distributor by the name of M.J. Winkler contracted to distribute copies of Alice in Wonderland on October 16, 1923. This became the official date of the start of the Disney Company.

In 1925, Disney came up with the idea for a cartoon mouse. He mentioned that mice had always intrigued him. In fact, he spoke of catching them in the waste basket when he worked at the Kansas City Slide, a small company that sold ads that appeared in motion picture theaters before the start of a movie. He kept the mice in a cage, as pets, and he enjoyed watching their antics.

While returning on a train from New York, Disney sketched some drawings of mice. He came up with a character he had named Mortimer Mouse. A Disney painter, and future secretary, Lillian Bonds, said she didn't like the name and recommended that the character be named Mickey Mouse.

In 1928, Disney directed the first Mickey Mouse cartoon called Plane Crazy. He also directed Steam Boat Willie, the first talking cartoon with a soundtrack, which was released in 1928 in New York, making Mickey Mouse a household name and launching Disney Studios into mainstream American culture. Disney went on to direct Disney's first feature film Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs in 1937. Disney became a publicly traded company in 1940.

It wasn't until July 17 1955, that Disney ventured into the realm of amusement parks. As a father of two girls, he always enjoyed taking them to theme parks and the zoo but felt as though he were missing out while he had to sit on a bunch while his daughters road the merry go round. He decided to create Disneyland specifically for the purpose of allowing parents and children to enjoy park rides together. Disneyland helped coin the phrase theme park and has served as a model for every theme park to emerge since. It has attracted hundreds of millions of visitors and its popularity has never waned.

After Walt Disney's death, and subsequent cryogenic freeze in 1966, Roy Disney decided to postpone his retirement to begin building Walt Disney World which opened on October 1^st, 1971.

Today, the Disney Media Networks branch includes the ABC television network as well as ten broadcast television stations and more than 70 radio stations. The Studio Entertainment group produces live-action and animated motion pictures, television animation programs, musical recordings and live-stage plays. Walt Disney Studios produces films through Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures, and Miramax. The Walt Disney Internet Group oversees the Web entities ABC.com, Disney Online, and ESPN.com.

In the fiscal year of 2007 alone, gross sales exceeded $35, 510,000 with a net revenue of $4,687,000. Currently Walt Disney World is ranked 62^nd in Fortune 500.

The Disney company has always had a good reputation with shareholders. Approximately two-thirds of the company's common stock is owned by institutional and mutual fund owners. In 2003, the company declared an annual dividend of $0.21 per share. Most major stock analysts issued a 'buy' recommendation after the company's earnings announcement was made in late 2003. Since 1999, dividends have remained steady at 21 cents a share. Their highest recorded stock price, over a five year period, was $43.88. Recently, the stock closed at $24.58. The lowest five year report was $13.48 which was reported in 2002.

When compared to the five other media giants between 1984 and 2005, Disney's competitors reported combined loses exceeding $171 billion. These include: Time Warner losing $99.7 billion; Universal Studios losing $40.6 billion; Viacom losing $21.2 billion; News Corporation losing $7.2 billion and Sony losing $2.7 billion.

So far, the only part of the Disney corporation that's struggled is Euro Disney, which has suffered due to a reduction in European travel and tourism. Currently, Euro Disney is focusing on restructuring its debt of over $2 billion dollars.

After Roy Disney died in 1971, the financial and creative powers of Disney seemed to come to a standstill. It wasn't until 1984, when Roy E. Disney convinced Disney's board of directors to hire a "childlike" Paramount CEO named Michael Eisner, along with Frank Wells as COO. The two of them helped transform a sleepy movie studio into a global entertainment enterprise with a net worth of $50 Billion. In his 21 years as Disney CEO, Eisner increased revenues from $2.5 billion to $30.8 billion; increased income from $294 million to $4.49 billion; cash flow increased from $100 million to $2.9 billion; market value rose from $1.9 billion to $57.4 billion. Also, the stock price went from $1.33 per share to $28.40 a share.

Although Eisner revolutionized Disney into a mega media conglomerate, he seemed to lack the strong financial skills and knowledge to keep a world wide media corporation running smoothly. His childish demeanor lead to tantrums and allegedly suffered from paranoia and grandiose delusions that he should control everything related to Disney. The reality was that he was a brilliant entrepreneur who could transform a company and turn things around, but lacked the pure business savvy to be effective in anything other than the creative or visionary process.

Eisner's paranoia about losing control was fueled in part by the fact that Wells was able to go straight to the Board of Directors to report on business dealings without having to consult Eisner, despite the fact that Eisner was the CEO.

Eisner responded by enrolling in a business financing class under an assumed name and attempted to reinvent himself as a numbers bean counter during his final 10 years. He subsequently squashed creativity, sacrificed quality and released the uninspiring Lion King 1 ½. Despite this, he still had a few flashes of brilliance with the Animal Kingdom theme park and the Pirates of the Caribbean film.

The breaking point was Eisner's dispute with Harvey Weinstein over the Michael Moore directed Film Fahrenheit 911, which was produced by Disney's affiliate Miramax. A newspaper ad in The New York Times claimed that Disney was blocking its release because of its controversial nature and its anti George W. Bush premise. The film went on to win the Plame D'Or top prize at the Cannes Film festival and netted $120 million in profit.

Eisner had even accused Weinstein of hiding the financial information related to Fahrenheit's production. So infuriated was Weinstein that he and his brother attempted to buy Miramax back from Disney but couldn't because Eisner held the cards.

Fearing that Eisner had become pathologically obsessed with his personal power, the shareholders of Disney voted not to renew his contract, which expired in 2006.

Eisner left Disney in 2005 after emailing his resignation letter and leaving the chairman position to Bob Iger. With Iger, Disney sought to renew the magic that had been lost with the death of Walt Disney. Iger published his "Five Tips for Managing Creativity" in the Wall Street Journal:

Don't take a hierchal approach

Don't create an approval process that is unduly rigorous

Be careful not to water ideas down or lose people's passion.

Let those directly in charge make decisions

Put spotlight on company, not individual

Iger, who earns a reported $2,000,000 a year in salary, also purchased Pixar for $7.4 billion. Apple and Pixar CEO Steve Jobs was also added to Disney's Board of Directors. Igar began his career at ABC in 1972 and oversaw tremendous growth while he worked in upper management. This included ABC's merger with Disney as well as the emergence of A&E, The History Channel, and Lifetime television. Officially, John E. Pepper, Jr. retains the title of Chairman - his income is undisclosed. Pepper is a former administrative officer at Yale University and also served as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of Proctor and Gamble. Some of the other key executives include CFO Thomas Staggs - who earns $1,106,250 in salary. Staggs overseas the company's world wide finance organization as well as corporate strategy and development, acquisitions, corporate alliances, risk management activities, treasury, controller functions, information systems, real estate and taxes. He was responsible for Disney's acquisition of Capital Cities/ABC. Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Business Development, and Technologies Kevin A Meyer - who earns $600,000. Meyer leads a small, narrowly focused group that keeps a keen eye on new acquisitions, portfolios, and possible future acquisitions for the company. The Executive Vice President of Human Resources is Wesley A. Coleman, who also earns $600,000 a year. Coleman overseas employee cultural development and employee education. All top Human Resources employees report to him. Previously, he had served as a Human Resources executive for all 25,000 of Nike's Human Resources employees. George W. Bodenheimer serves as Co-Chairman of Disney Media Networks as Well as President of ESPN and ABC sports. As president of ESPN, Inc. he heads one of the world's most premier brands in cable television with more than 40 business entities with seven domestic and 25 international ESPN networks. The other Co-Chairman of Disney's Media Networks is Anne M. Sweeney, named one of the world's 100 most powerful women by Forbes magazine. She is responsible for all of Disney's global entertainment interests including ABC entertainment, ABC Kids, ABC Daytime and ABC news, Touchstone Television, and ABC Disney Cable networks groups which make up Disney Channel Worldwide. She also manages Disney's interests in Lifetime Television Networks, A&E, and E-Entertainment.

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