Film Production
Lights, camera, succession: Nigel Warner to helm UK’s Pact
MUMBAI: After 25 years at the helm, John McVay is finally leaving the building. The outgoing chief executive of Pact, Britain’s trade association for independent television and film producers, is handing over to Nigel Warner, a political operator turned creative industries fixer who’s spent more than a decade whispering policy sweet nothings into Westminster’s ear.
Warner, currently UK policy consultant to the Motion Picture Association and special counsel at Lexington, will take the reins on 2 March 2026. McVay exits at month’s end, closing a chapter that’s seen British indies become the envy of the global television market.
The new boss brings heavyweight credentials. He cut his teeth as special adviser to Mo Mowlam at the Northern Ireland Office and later served Tessa Jowell when she ran the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. After government, he steered public affairs at ITV for four years before co-founding Creative Access, a social enterprise hell-bent on dragging the media into demographic reality.
“Nigel brings a forensic understanding of the policy landscape,” said Pact chair and managing director of Raise The Roof Productions Jane Muirhead who led the search. “He has a solid grasp of all the current and upcoming challenges facing the sector.”
Warner’s in-tray won’t be light. British independent producers face streaming upheaval, artificial intelligence disruption and the eternal struggle to maintain terms of trade with broadcasters and platforms. His Rolodex—spanning the Royal Television Society, Business LDN’s Cultural Council and the Creative Industries Council—suggests he knows who to call.
“The work of our indie producers makes for one of the most dynamic creative sectors this country has,” Warner said, deploying the obligatory patriotic flourish. “We have an indie sector that is the envy of the world and I will do everything in my power to make sure it stays that way.”
McVay, for his part, sounded genuinely pleased to pass the baton to someone he’s “known and worked with for many years.”
Translation: the handover should be drama-free, which in this industry counts as a plot twist.
Film Production
Disney to cut 1,000 jobs under new chief executive
The entertainment giant’s freshly installed boss inherits a restructuring already in motion, with marketing and corporate roles bearing the brunt
CALIFORNIA: Walt Disney is preparing to slash up to 1,000 jobs in the coming weeks, the Wall Street Journal reported, as the entertainment giant’s freshly installed chief executive moves swiftly to trim fat and tighten the ship.
The cuts, less than 1 per cent of Disney’s global workforce of 231,000, will fall hardest on marketing and corporate roles. The planning, notably, began before D’Amaro formally took the top job in March, suggesting the new boss inherited a restructuring already in motion rather than one of his own making.
Driving the push is Asad Ayaz, Disney’s newly appointed chief marketing officer, who in January assumed command of a unified, company-wide marketing operation spanning film, television and streaming. His consolidation drive has been given a suitably cinematic internal name: Project Imagine.
The move is modest by Disney’s recent standards. Between 2023 and 2025, under former chief executive Bob Iger, the company eliminated roughly 8,000 positions across several brutal rounds of cuts, saving $7.5 billion, comfortably exceeding its own targets. As recently as June 2025, several hundred more jobs were axed across Disney Entertainment, hitting film and television marketing, publicity, casting, development and corporate finance.
Disney’s structural headaches are well-documented: shrinking streaming margins, a weakened box office, and fierce competition from Amazon and YouTube gnawing at its flanks. The company is merging its Disney+ and Hulu teams into a single app, has brought in consultants from Bain & Co to guide its broader cost strategy, and is betting heavily on digital growth.
The wider entertainment industry offers little comfort. Sony Pictures, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery have all taken the knife to their workforces in recent years, and further cuts loom if Paramount’s acquisition of Warner goes through.
For D’Amaro, the message is clear: there will be no honeymoon period. The magic kingdom still has some cost-cutting spells left to cast.
