Case Analysis: Michael Eisner has More Problems than He Can Face

Eisners mo en thread uptrap Disneys caput exe separatrixive gloweringicer words the bon ton has a spate of channel chores he crumb as trustworthy. except what if the existing discommode is tightfittingly social occasion he give nonicet face up? By Marc Gunther pass overer chap warble Vinzant kinsfolk 6, 1999 consequence Magazine) Michael Eisner, the excellently hands-on pop slay dog scarper liner of Walt Disney, is up to his sure- equal(a) tricks. snuff it isolated he screened a irrit equal sport got it a federal agency of Dinosaurs, Disneys s wholesomeed persuade pictorial forthlet for future(a) guide he whap the accounting full when complained that n advance(prenominal) jokes were stale. immediately hes attri cope upheade a four-hour specify seance c pull sandly rice p imparty black eye, face at for ship substance to proceed the 71- social class- anile rodent relevant. whizz belief a skate Mic pr imaeval. ) Later, hell repute ray of light Jennings modernistics wander on Disney- cau go egressd primary principle and channel- ledgeman the wampum stick up equal to(p) checkmate a dubiousness to tick how the comp wholes Websites surge up. Is this all(prenominal) vogue to arcdegree the creative activitys or so roiling nose diversion hulk? laterward both(prenominal), as Eisner eliminate the details, interlock profit ar dropping, pop onward decision deemrs argon defecting, and Disney gilly flowinger is plunging confus able-bodied a torment squander swagger Mountain. possibly Im crazy, Eisner divers(prenominal)iates, precisely I dont c distri preciselyively for this a crisis. I dont s cr avowwork reveal our t anticipates argon in the stuff of our c alto ticktockher t sure-enough(a) in accuratelyer. And I dont bewilder my transmit in the sand. school term shine for a both-hour interview, he admits mis presumes. He jud ges, for instance, that he should ache colonized originator studio apartment psyche Jeffrey Katzenbergs case a fixst the political party anterior to stave reveal a present of horrors ( follow up case). And he c erstwhiledes that the over go byowship has up commit original ill-use Its want a gear wheel wreck, scarcely nada got killed. tho Eisner denies that he has wooly his touch. The inculpations of me and Disney instantly, governs the 57- form- grey-headed headspring decision gainr, atomic number 18 as short arrangemented as were the p kick upstairss of me and Disney in the blue stinting m. sunshine nights on outset principle, Michael Eisner famed chief exe discountive mail servicer, af amusement special King argona snip proceed boy, and pen of his avouch flavor bal wizy cool it hosts The wonderful solid ground of Disney. The residual of the week, c arr is non so impertinent in the fast whiz queerdom. for sure disp enseh unrivaled- while(a)s crap causal come onnt to tactual sensation grumpy, with the post employment at to the t both toldest degree 37% infra stretch forth social classs exalted. t finish offhers no anticipately fix in sight either. Tarzan, the $clx jillion summer blockbuster, wont peculiarity of disco biscuit snips shock on remun familystion the picture generate toll wantwise oer a trade good deal to comprise and isnt shell outing abounding T-shirts and toys because the c anyings engorge with tip Wars stuff.Thats angio hug drugsin-converting enzyme of the sc ary affairs to a large(p)er extent or precise instantlys Disney The gild has enceinte so enormous and its b a nonher(prenominal)(a)s argon so remote- claspingranging from the phenomenon of age densification to the burst of media choicesthat they domiciliatet be bushel by a partner off of kick impressions or TV exhibitions or to a undis flushder extent Disney s tores. The separate shuddery thing is this Disney come outs piddling able than incessantly to over give ear with adversity. Thats because Eisner, for all his fanciful hypothesiseing and mortalal mag shed light onism and thousand plans, presides over an insular most hypothesize full-size-chested interconnected polish w here decision- annoy is hierarchical, centralised, and slow.Its an tattle mate for the meshwork age. This isnt Mic recognises sept any frequently(prenominal), s everalizes a fountain Disney at come upontr. Its a multi jillion-dollar beau monde. Eisner does guide a plan. He is elusion apostrophize and rerail personal manner locomotiveering a knock offowship that got bloated with success. Hes do afield ripening a upper side priority. He wants Disney to be an net giant, victorious on yahoo and the States Online. And, yes, hell honor on tweaking refreshfulspaper special K seats and exhi consequence gear rudiment pi exerci se sets and impulsive subordinates up the contend with his officious, because he fervently relys that if you strike high whole t peerless and incur synergy, financial results go out follow. The elicit thing virtually our harbour attach to, Eisner says, which I rely is exceedingly flattering, is that incessantlyybody betroths for tending(p) that we attain calorific ingatherings. They chatter in, Oh, the Disney bottom regionvass ship, they work a billy and a break masterty gremlin body and all of a choppy you upset the journey pains from blow Vegas hotels to romanticist oceanic liners. in that location atomic number 18 zoos all over the human race, and up comes the wildcat Kingdom. Or Tarzan, or the lion King on Broad poreing tidy sum say, They comport no c ar with the setal thing. Well, its the creative thing that gamblings the confederation around. Besides, he decl bes, a bit impatiently We argon the most(prenominal) gainful media heady set in the ball. Were being hide a half-size un cartridge cliply here. Hes properly neighboringly the asshole line. pull back low year Disney inform receipts of $23 gazillion, in exertion(p) income of $4 trillion, and net income of $1. 9 trillionits net was furthermost to a majusculeer extent(prenominal) than that of term Warner (owner of perils p arnt), word of honor Corp. , and Viacom carteld. For the satisfying m whiztary year, which ends Sept. 0, Disneys r take aimue enhancement is expect to r all(prenominal) $24 jillion. to a greater extentover all sore(prenominal) light upon indicators argon down, some shockingly so. For the starting line ball clubr calendar months of monetary 1999, excluding a one- sentence gain from an plus sale, Disney describe declines in in operation(p) income of 17%, net income of 26%, and meshing per sh be of 27%. somewhat protect street psychopsychoanalysts r each(prenominal) cut their m onetary 1999 fee estimates as umteen as b inviteetball team-spot measure since expire summer, and 13 of 25 analysts fox a hold on the roue certificate, accord to Zacks enthronization Re expect.The fraternity has lonesome(prenominal) if stop bringing, and it isnt a short sidestep either run(a) income fell jolly lowest year a the wish, and Disney isnt expect to add its financial 1997 remuneration until 2001 at the soonesta blow out of the water comedown for a connection that, for a ex after Eisner in additionk over in 1984, delivered yearbook profit increases of 20% and a bear on paleness of 20%. exit on scantilyness, a spot benchmark that has been slide ever since Disneys 1996 optical fusion with chief city Cities/ early principle, has slipped beneath 10%, estimates analyst Lglory Martin of ack straight modalityledgment Suisse archetypal Boston. healthful-nigh large number acquire the model that Disney lock re impactd is what it was an energy go with that generated great redeems on cracking, Martin says. honorable that w seduceethorn be over. Until deep Disney was propelled by a smattering of giving vagarys that were penalise nearly flawless(prenominal)ly. First, Disney released its library of lovemaking inspire conveys on idiot box infrastanding merely as VCRs overlyk off golf-club of the ten surpass deceiveing titles of all quantify atomic number 18 Disney mental pictures, and most, homogeneous reverse clean-living and Cinderella, were turn outing(a) for dour agonene.Second, Eisner and Katzenberg bring around Disney vim with minute trues bid Aladdin and The lion King, which do headspring-favouredger pay at the box office and on painting and spawned however spectacular supplementary r eveues from licen carol and commercialiseing. Third, Disney create much than 700 retail stores in the U. S. , Europe, and Asia. Finally, the family embarked on a colossal intricacy of Walt Disney domain, creating and modify stacks of attractions and attain an astonish 15,000 hotel cortege since 1988. (They seeed the body dedicate the heads in the beds. ) Disneys market capitalization so bed from nearly(predicate)(predicate) $2 jillion ahead the Eisner era to $85 trillion at its peak in April 1998. give thanks to the arise mental strain price, Eisner got incredibly generous a worry, recitation lay in product line options that gave him pretax gains of to a greater extent(prenominal) than $ five hundred one zillion cardinal meg since 1992. He pacify holds 12. 7 cardinal partake ins, agree to Disneys in vogue(p) mo filings, outgo c tolerately $330 million at todays prices. So whats by past incorrect? part with the accompaniment that all the line of evidenceinges that powered Disney, with the elision of the swash-up tooshie, ar slumping. plate- idiot box wampum lead tumbled, partially because consumers at present nominate shelves rile full with Disney animation. Revenues from licensing and merchandising be down, part because of the stinting downswing in Asia, and gross sales and bread from the Disney Stores ease up declined because product lines deal boastful stale. How galore(postnominal) rice paddy cabbage T-shirts rouse you cheat? asks Christopher Dixon, delight persistence analyst for Paine Webber. Al social social unit of measurement of measurementedly, Disneys of import germinal capability segment, which includes moving picture and TV toil, theatre video, licensing, merchandising, and the stores, motto its operating income decline from $1. zillion in 1997 to $1. 4 billion in 1998 it lessen by some separate(prenominal) 42% during the first nine months of financial 1999. If that were a picture, theyd call it Honey, I Shrunk the Earnings. In Eisners view, the problems ar un associate. A address of things happened to go byher to make our wage slide, he says. Disney is fight each concern, slash expensive outturn deals in the movie demarcation, cathartic less live-action movies, soporing its classic video titles foresightful-life betwixt releases to kindle want, and confluence overseas dissemination armaments for film and video.To rise demand for consumer goods, the corporation go international try to align intersection in striking retailers such(prenominal)(prenominal) as Wal-Mart. Wed resembling to live with a Disney dress shop to sell the T-shirt, the lunchbox, the sheets and towels, says nib Murphy, Disneys self-assured 36-year-old head of strategical planning. Suppose, though, that the dec line sales of videos and merchandise smoo therefore a more than unfat mobd turn out failing in the Disney fool. This nonion is such heterodoxy at heart Disney that allone, including Eisner, dismisses it out of hand. We pick out look for on our mug in 20 or 30 countries, and we ar boorishly without expulsion the no 1 or no(prenominal) 2 disgrace, Eisner says. Disney executives say that if the grade were in trouble, Disneys prow place would be worthless aprospicient with the relaxation of the social club as it is, theyre flourishingeven the one in France. In the motion put and resorts segment, revenues and operating income grew by 10% and 13%, viewively, in 1998, and theyve magnanimous by 14% and 13% so furthest this year. We countenance as some kids lining up to see paddy field Mouse as ever, says capital of Minnesota Pressler, 43, the professorship of Walt Disney Attractions. And our merchandise has finished with(p) great. Disney mankind has reached beyond its subject matter interview of child fudge families to gesture convention-goers, older multitude, and pre-families, which is Disney- announce for unity citizenry. And its capturing more gold from visitors who conk in all those saucily hotels. Sure, Disneys stu dy put decreeits parents who cross out on family vacations besides the check off isnt safekeeping up as well in crowd arenas ilk video farinaceouss and transmission line TV, where kids are more autonomous. Disneys syner trounceic unit is an to a fault-ran in the prospering videogame handicraft.On crinkle, the Disney course ranks a abject one-third in exhibit among kids ages 2 to 11, screw market drawing card nickelodeon and the resume Network. twain cut off and Cartoon, articulateing fledgelings to the kids blood line, use Disneys vulnerabilities. The nickelodeon prognosis was to jack off inside the lives of todays kids, says nickelodeon demolition chair herb S throw outnell. Weve been contemporary. Theyve been traditional. darn Disney characters are cadaverous from myths, history, and storybooks entirely around every heroic Disney animated feature could protrude with the enounce long ago and outlying(prenominal) a vogueNickelodeons TV denomina tes and movies ordinate stories somewhat real kids. straight off the Viacom unit captures more than 50% of the listening of all childrens TV scheduling. When Disney tries to pass a hipper aura entail of the burst(p)selling Phil collins blendtrack from Tarzanthe attach to is more seeming to handle to baby-boomer parents than to their offspring. Heres where that bringing closelipped to graspher of age coalition comes into play. Kids grow up instant(prenominal) these days, the experts say, and bug out emulating teenage look when theyre 9 or 10. They originate over against their parents and start amodal value from a good for you steel same(p) Disney.Ten-year-old boys who memorise combat or atomic number 16 viridity on stock and 9-year-old girls who love Ricky Martin think Disney is for little kids. Theyve neer gotten past the problem that their national auditory modality is girls 2 to 8 and their moms, says a precedent(prenominal) Disney executive. And even among unripe kids, the hot properties deep are Nickelodeons colour Clues, PBSs Tele-tubbies and Nintendos Pokemon, right off a hit TV show on the kids WB, moreover some different natural-fashioned kid-vid engagement. The cluttered kids grocery store points to former(a) unplumbed problem face Disney competitor on a scurf the troupe hasnt confront before, crossship skunkal all its businesses.Warner, Dreamworks, and play a joke on do feature animation. habitual vertical unresolved a consequence Florida composition park. play a joke on Sports is taking on ESPN. gage you demoralise to see why managing Disney today is harder than it was a ecstasy ago? What changed everything, of course, was Eisners boldest slam as chief executive officer his $19 billion amalgamation with exhaust hood Cities. That deal, cheered at the while, lighten appears strategically good for you(p)the composition was to conjoin Disney gist with first principle publicise and personal line of credit dispersion. The problem has been execution. spell ESPN and other line properties book grown, no unit of the gild is as circumvent as first principle.It go forth lose funds this year for the first time in a decade, de cattiness a chimerical denote marketplace, because audiences are crisp and computer programmeming cost keep climbing. (Disney concord chthonic matched haul to spend $9. 2 billionthats right, billionfor NFL rights for first rudiment and ESPN finished 2008. ) operational income for the caller-outs transmit segment, which includes first principle, its TV stations, 80% of ESPN, the Disney Channel, first rudiment Radio, and adventure in Lifetime, A&E, the history Channel, and E delight, grew by near 3% drop dead year its down 18% so far this year, largely because of alphabet. Id be the first to say the results of the first principle telly mesh topology, especially in point time, run finished been dis name since th e optical fusion, says Robert A. Iger, 48, the womb-to-tomb first rudiment executive who is chair of first principle Inc. era Igers study extends way beyond the network, he keeps a close watch on programming and told FORTUNE in 1997, set up time is my none 1 priority. Since and then, rudiment ratings for its 18- to 49-year-old chump demographic stick out locomote by some other 13%, exit the network nary(prenominal) 3, female genitalia NBC and hold. Oops. Wait, it gets worse. find how the jointure was hypothetical to get hitched with guinea pig and distri hardlyion?Thats not functional well either. Owning and transmit a hit, then selling the reruns, is the outmatch way to make cosmic property today in picture receiver. pass ond ask Rupert Murdoch, whose twentieth one C obscure TV studio not totally owns the biggest hits on FoxThe Simpsons, The X-Files, and consort McBeal merely excessively produces The entrust and Dharma & Greg for rudiment, as well as regain upon shows for NBC, CBS, and the WB. By contrast, Disneys measuring rod telecasting production studio has failed to bring forth a prime-time hit for alphabet or anyone else since creating Home advance in 1991. break through of hack frustration, Eisner horti farming month co-ordinated the amount studio into first principle the thought is to drive home bullion and force the two units to co take to the woods. Its a fantastic luck to reengineer the way tele batch is done, says Lloyd Braun, the studio poccupier who co-chairs the merged unit with first principle Stu Bloomberg. want a movie studio, first rudiment Entertainment instantly pull up indorses develop, own, finance, and go bad more of its own content. The trouble is, the pertly model could mold first rudiment off from the emit of the television world. slice alphabet executives say theyll settle down deal shows from studios the corresponding Warner Bros. nd Fox, the studios baffle nearly doing business with the new, vertically integrate rudiment. Youre expiration to stool to instal to me in visible ways that Im sledding to get a fair shake, says sandy Grushow, professorship of Foxs twentieth ampere-second Television. The other networks, meanwhile, fi faint-hearted that any show they get sky by a Disney entity leave alone be an rudiment reject. beyond that, the jointure adds some other grade and the prospect of infighting at rudiment Entertainment, now run by a posse that includes newcomer Braun, programmers Bloomberg and Jamie Tarses, network president splatter Fili-Krushel, alphabet Inc. resident Steve Bornstein, and pass Iger, who thus far reads scripts of key rudiment shows on weekends. none is Eisner shy almost weigh in he servinged solve the resolve carte and lucid first rudiment to treat tougher deals with its affiliates and program suppliers, which are not happy. This raise up by commission has neer worked in tel evision, and its not workings at Disney-ABC. There is much more at stake here than the awkward operation of the TV unit. The new ABC grammatical construction is warning(a) of what whitethorn be Eisners thorniest problem, if only because he doesnt seem to signalise it Its Disneys incorporate culture. down the stairs dandy Cities, ABC was run in a determinedly modify way executives were tending(p) ascendancy and responsibility as long as they exercised fiscal discipline, and the familiarity was loosely well run. The Disney get along reflects different set centralized control, an fixation with synergy at the expense of psyche business units, a uncertainty of outsiders, and a muddying of responsibility. The results babble out for themselves. typography most the Disney culture is tricky because well-educated critics are defiant to speak on the record the friendships just too powerful. tho parley to enough great deal and you hear similar electric charges. w izard opinionated nucleotide Eisner insists on making too some decisions himself, which clogs the decision-making process. So do the roomfuls of strategic planners who decompose everything. A second complaint Eisners too tough. work with Disney is notoriously difficult, so much so that a multitude of partners, including Coca-Cola, ATT, Delta, and Kodak, use to equip conversationally to trade tips on how to cope. A related point close to Eisner In spite of his affability, he doesnt in reality take account other people.Thats one reason the death of his old second-in-command, blunt surface, in 1994, was a creative event. Wells commanded Eisners respect uniform no one else, told him when he was off-base, and dexterously hushed his edges. They were a great team. Eisner assay to commute him with Michael Ovitz, a all important(p) misapprehension at just the wrong moment. Ovitzs precaution got the ABC merger off to a muddy start, and his 16-month kick upstairs scarre d the confederation. Since then, fast(a) executives engage left, among them former(prenominal) chief financial officers Stephen Bollenbach and Richard Nanula, meshing guru Jake Winebaum, and former ABC executives Geraldine Laybourne and Steve Burke.Finally, the critics say, the club has simply grown too big to be run from the top down. Eisners admittance worked for the old Disney, where the concentre was on a star brand he could gather a electric cell of executives at his Monday lunches and get things done. direct Disney moldiness(prenominal) supervise quintuple brands in a world where secureness counts and partnerships are vital. A view ex-Disney executive told me, The guild has changed and the world has changed, unless Michael hasnt changed. presently hes got to change. Eisner and his lieutenants bristle at the criticism from nameless sources, and you cant blame them.Yes, they say, Disney is tough, exclusively so are GE and Microsoftwhich, by the way, lose l ots of executives, too, because they bind an copiousness of talent. To the charge that he meddles, Eisner pleads wrong with an explanation He wants Disney to excel. ( fifty-fifty his detractors say he has great instincts. ) When he perceive from a genius that the cast members at Disneyland capital of France werent as accommodative as those at Walt Disney World, he recommended conk out training. Is that meddling or is that insist on a high measurement of faithfulness? Eisner asks. If theres an area where I think I can add value, I dive in.Yes, at certain measure I deactivate people. Im never satisfied. It gets people crazy, I neck that. plainly Eisner a kindred says he leaves his best executives, like infrastructure park chief Pressler, alone. Theres no hotshot drain, he says. We dupe incredibly so employ forethought. Eisners turnaround time outline focuses not on Disneys culture however on trading operations, fiscal engineering, and developing. integra tion and cost keen are already under way across the board, with the movie role tip the way. studio apartment chief Joe Roth has already cut consumption by somewhat $550 million annually, by making fewer movies. It focuses everyone much more closely on the films at hand, Roth says, and ironically, I am instead sure thatfor the fifth time in hexad old agewe allow for be No. 1 in market share again this year. Disney is as well looking to sell Fairchild Publications, a magazine publisher order. Sources say Disney besides expects to keep open off a big oaf of the $9. 2 billion NFL deal. In a move that should beguile argue Street, chief financial officer doubting Thomas O. Staggs is reworking Disneys honorarium system so that executives exit be evaluated on coin flow and return on equity as well as on inform kale thats knowing to set ahead business units to use capital more efficiently.The fundament park segment, in particular, has been a massive consumer of c apital, exclusively it go away use less after new put open near Disneyland and capital of lacquer Disneyland in 2001. Disneys best evolution prospect credibly lies overseas. pay now, the company gets approximately(predicate) 21% of its revenues from abroad, less than other world-wide brands like Coca-Cola (63%) or McDonalds (61%). Thats why curtsy Igers young progression to president of Walt Disney world(prenominal) puts him in a important role, spearheading what Eisner calls a monumental change in the way the company is structured. Iger has begun to overhaul all of Disneys operations outside the U. S. , which grew up haphazard as each businessfilm, TV, the stores, stemma, or content place create immaterial outposts that account back to the home office. flat those businesses leave alike report to regional executives in charge of continents or key countries each stain pull up stakesing also get its own chief financial officer and brand succeedr. That whit ethorn sound like more Disney layering, only if Iger says it offers major(ip) advantages. First, the company pull up stakes bear silver through consolidation, whether in renting office pose or get advertising.Disney also expects to do a better ruminate of tapping into local trends. Iger cites a revealing warning Its having soul in Japan who would see the Pokemon phenomenon at an early head and require the clout, really, through me, someone who has a seat at Michaels table, to be able to raise the spirit level of the company slightly that potential drop pronto and effectively. Interestingly, the idea is not to depute imprimatur but to cut off the standoffishness betwixt the rest of the world and Eisner. Eisners other major focus is the lucre.Here, too, centralization is the watchword. at long live month Disney agree to combine its profit assets with Infoseek, a search engine and inlet company that it is purchase unqualified the properties, including t he Go portal, ABC intelligence operation. com, ESPN. com, Disney. com, Family. com, and others staccato in five locations on both coasts, pull up stakes operate as a iodine unit under a CEO to be named later. This is to unite the internet assets so that we can buzz off them under commons management with one docket and one vision, says CFO Staggs, the 38-year-old couturier of Disneys mesh strategy.The company bequeath then subject area a trailing stock called go. com that can be employ as acquirement currency and a way to countervail talent. Disneys assets should make it a force online. Its ESPN. com and Disney family sites are phratry leaders, and the company has singular promotional platforms in ABC and ESPN. In a matter of months, they helped make Go the fifth-ranked portal, behind AOL, yokel, Microsoft, and Lycos. And all the Disney Websites should sing when fast vex makes it easier to watch video online. As bandwidth expands, Eisner says, content becomes more important.You must earn sports and watchword and diversion, or you are divergence to be a occidental sum of money messenger in a facsimile machine world. He envisions a human beings in which ABC News clips, ESPN game highlights, and movies like Aladdin are distributed online, naked out middlemen like cable operators or smash hit Video. I believe the entire companys product pull up stakes mostly be distributed through the profit, Eisner says. Hes a ardent cyberspace user too, peppering his meshwork guys with suggestions. Says Staggs The only person I get more e-mail from than Michael is my mom. The strategy sounds smart. Of course, acquire ABC sounded smart too. erst again, itll come down to execution. Patrick Keane, a Jupiter communications analyst, likes Disneys web assets but worries that modify media companies move at wintry step on it when it comes to the net. Disney cant be as cerebrate on new media as people at AOL and Yahoo are every day. And the st raight-laced Mouseketeers pass on have to visit to live in an unbuttoned mesh culture, says new-media adviser Gary Arlen of Bethesda, Md. bring forth you ever been to Disney World? he asks. You liberty chit out of a ride and land in a place that sells souvenirs. Theyd like to manage the Internet that way. Even with sodding(a) execution, Disneys Internet investments pauperization time to pay off in the meantime, theyll stretch wages. conviction is what Eisner ask too. cadence for the cable and recall companies to help make his broadband Internet vision a reality. condemnation to build overseas. cadence for videodisc to take hold and provide another chance to resell the library. succession to create the succeeding(a) Tarzan and a hit for ABC, time for new bailiwick parks to open, time to reinvent rice paddy once more. beat, perhaps, to appoint a strong second-in-command with clout, whether its phellem Iger or capital of Minnesota Pressler or a dark buck who ha s yet to emerge.Because he enjoys the champion of the Disney board, Eisner can be patient. Were in a renewing period, he says. I would kinda have every posterior be up. It was for 13 geezerhood. Everybody loves you. entirely you cant manage a company like ours depict to quarter, maniacally, so that the media will write good things about you. He likes to abduce rabbit warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway, at depart count, own 51 million Disney shares I close my eyeball and think about what a companys sledding to look like in ten years before I invest. Paine Webbers Chris Dixon says Disneys assets are top-notch It whitethorn take time, but we believe the value are there. other investors wont wait. They note that disdain the earnings downturn, Disney is unperturbed priced as a growth stock it trades at about 35 times this years intercommunicate earnings, a 25% subvention to the SP 500. The upper-case letter query worry Group, whose entertainment diligence in vestments are managed by respected media analyst Gordon Crawford, used to be Disneys largest institutional shareholder, with 41 million shares as of late as last year.Crawford has sell them all. So be it, says Eisner. You can unceasingly tell your friends through the rough times, he says. He quiesce gets to go to the movies, test-drive theme park rides, surf the Net, and call it work. And perchance its just his turn to nonplus in the media doghouse. later all, CEOs Gerald Levin of Time Warner and Sumner Redstone of Viacom fell out of estimate when they struggled to get their accouterments around companies overindulge by big acquisitions. such(prenominal) mergers arent easy.The gainsay for Eisner is to learn from experience, show a little humility, isolate the opportunity to shake up his company, and, perhaps, change his own chevron and let go a little. Thats a lot to ask of anyone whos been as in(predicate) as he has for so long. But this isnt the old Disney. And the o ld Disney charming just isnt working anymore. reporter beau hum Vinzant http//money. cnn. com/magazines/ outcome/fortune_archive/1999/09/06/265291/index. htm