Disney names Adam Smith chairman of streaming business

CALIFORNIA: Walt Disney is not messing about. On 17 September the entertainment giant named Adam Smith, an insider who joined the company only in 2024, as chairman of its streaming business. The message is unmistakable: streaming is no longer the sideshow, it is the main event.

Smith’s brief is hefty. He will steer strategy and development across Disney’s global entertainment subscription video-on-demand business, its proprietary advertising technology and its emerging technologies. In plain English, he now holds the keys to Disney+ and Hulu, and to how Disney squeezes more ad dollars out of both.

The reshuffle did not stop there. Disney also handed Joe Earley a freshly minted role as president of Disney Entertainment Television Franchise and Content Strategy. It is a job built for one purpose: wringing every last drop of value out of the company’s television franchises across the group. Earley is no stranger to the streaming trenches either. He joined Disney in 2019, just ahead of the Disney+ launch, and rose to president of Hulu in 2022.

Taken together, these appointments are a statement of intent rather than a mere game of musical chairs. Disney’s direct-to-consumer arm has morphed from a defensive scramble against Netflix into a genuine profit engine, one that lets the company distribute content on its own terms, deepen viewer engagement and grow its advertising business at a healthy clip. Promoting from within, rather than parachuting in outsiders, suggests Disney is confident its existing playbook works and simply needs sharper execution at the top.

For investors, the takeaway is reassuringly simple. Disney is not chasing shiny new strategies. It is doubling down on what is already paying off, streaming, and putting trusted lieutenants in charge of making it pay off even more.