DIS Walt Disney Co

By Mike Shields 

DISNEY SHOCKER: The question of who would succeed Disney Chairman and CEO Robert Iger appeared to be settled when Thomas Staggs was tapped as COO last year. But in a surprising twist, the media giant announced Mr. Staggs will step down on May 6, though he will be a special advisor to Mr. Iger for the remainder of the fiscal year, The Wall Street Journal reports. The change comes at a tricky time for Disney, which is riding high on the performance of its film business, thanks to Star Wars, even as it tries to reassure investors that ESPN is on track to weather the cord-cutting storms in cable TV. The New York Times reports that Disney's board wasn't convinced Mr. Staggs was up to the challenge of following Mr. Iger, who is set to step down in 2018. The board is broadening its succession hunt and is now likely to focus in large part on outside candidates, reports WSJ.

FACEBOOK SUGGESTION BOX: Publishers love that Facebook has become a powerful distribution outlet for their videos. Now, they want to make money on the social media platform. Last year, Facebook rolled out its Suggested Videos product, which is designed to help people find more video content on the site beyond what pops up in their feeds. It's also designed for Facebook to show people more video ads, and help publishers share in the ad revenue. The initial reviews are in and they're mixed, reports CMO Today. Some publishers say the Suggested Video treatment is helping them find new audiences, while others think the product is too easy for people to ignore. Either way, nobody's making much revenue yet.

YAHOO'S MEDIA CORRECTION: Just when you thought you'd read your last "man, Yahoo is super dysfunctional" story, here comes another from Vanity Fair. It details the beleaguered Web portal's recent expansion in the content and news business, and subsequent pullback when it became clear the strategy wasn't quite panning out. It seems that Chief Executive Marissa Mayer wanted Yahoo to be more like Time Inc. or even Vanity Fair, but original content on Yahoo's homepage is always competing with the latest news on Kim Kardashian's anatomy, as some staffers see it. Now the company is "reverting to its natural form," a former Yahoo staffer is quoted as saying, "a crap home page for the Midwest." In defense of the Midwest, people in New York and Los Angeles care about the Kardashians too.

DATA LEVY: Maurice Lévy, the chief executive of Publicis Groupe, has some intriguing ideas about how the ad industry should deal with the rise of ad blocking on the Web. He proposes that ad firms work together to build a system that would empower consumers to control how their data is used by marketers and even pay people a small sum for allowing ads to be targeted at them, reports The Globe and Mail. That's potentially complicated and expensive. But Mr. Lévy believes something that drastic may be necessary, given what he sees as a major deterioration of trust between marketers and consumers. If ad blocking continues to grow, "we are wasting the investment of our clients," he said.

Elsewhere

Taking a page out of HBO's playbook, the premium cable network Starz is rolling out a direct-to-consumer subscription app aimed at people who pay for broadband but don't have cable. Starz, which has long been the subject of merger-and-acquisition rumors, will charge $9 a month for access to its content. [ New York Times]

One of Bill Simmons' first big projects for HBO will be a talk show, "After the Thrones," which will follow--and dissect--each week's episode of "Game of Thrones" this season. [ Medium]

Bidders for a minority stake in Viacom's Paramount Pictures include Lionsgate, Comcast, Wanda and Amazon, according to the New York Post. [ New York Post]

The Federal Communications Commission has created a system of new labels aimed at helping consumers better understand how different broadband services should perform based on a range of performance levels and data packages. [ WSJ]

The Web video company Machinima is planning to launch a daily "SportsCenter"-like news show covering professional video games exclusively on Verizon's mobile service go90. [ Variety]

Lawyers for Erin Johnson, the chief communications officer at J. Walter Thompson who is suing the company, are trying to stop the agency's lawyers from blocking the release of a video which allegedly features ousted CEO Gustavo Martinez making sexist and racist comments. [ Ad Age]

Just how did over 100 news outlets collaborate on the "Panama Papers" investigation that details offshore holdings of foreign officials? They worked in password-secure encrypted forums and built a search engine for the leaked documents at the heart of the reporting. [ Poynter / Wired]

Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei will leave next week, months earlier than originally planned, though Mike Allen, author of the famed Politico Playbook newsletter, will stay on through the 2016 election. [ CNN Money]

Adweek takes a long look at why marketers, who are enamored with millennials and for decades have been fixated on baby boomers, have largely ignored poor Generation X. [ Adweek]

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 05, 2016 07:50 ET (11:50 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.