ESPN is Bob Iger's first priority at Disney: Kevin Mayer

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As Disney (DIS) continues to look for strategic partners for ESPN, Candle Media Co-Founder & Co-CEO Kevin Mayer sat down with Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Canal at Yahoo Finance Invest to discuss Disney CEO Bob Iger's return to the company and his focus on ESPN.

Iger is “definitely most focused on making sure that ESPN, a company that he really believes in strongly, is well positioned for the future… ESPN is his first priority and he has ideas to fix that and to strengthen it and to change its business model over time,” Mayer said. “They’re talking publicly about taking it out of the linear TV bundle where it has been exclusively... and moving that to also exist in an over-the-top world. So that’s going to be a really interesting transition... if that transition can be helped by parties that can be partners in a substantial way, that’s what he’s looking to do.”

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Video Transcript

ALEXANDRA CANAL: One CEO who has preached creativity is Bob Iger, your former boss and Disney is a big story right now. We have the stock trading near multi-year record lows, another activist investor right when Nelson Peltz, you're serving as a strategic advisor, so in what capacity are you working with Iger? And what advice are you giving him right now?

KEVIN MAYER: Well, I can tell you what capacity I'm working to some degree. I can't tell you what advice I'm giving him. That's between--

ALEXANDRA CANAL: Can't give all the secrets--

KEVIN MAYER: --between Bob and I, I suppose and the board but look, he needed-- he needed some part of his team back. He came back to a company that had vastly changed. The previous leadership under Bob Chapek had-- making some decisions that probably Bob Iger would not have taken. He was CEO, free to do that.

But when you come back into a situation that's vastly changed from what you left, and a lot of the team-- team that you had before and relied on before were gone, I left him in a position where he really wanted to have some people that he trusted tell them what they thought and that's what I'm doing. I'm not spending an enormous amount of time, but I was at the company for a long time.

I've seen a lot of the dynamics that are happening out there in the world and have to trust my judgment on some things. So I just-- I talk to him from time to time.

ALEXANDRA CANAL: So through your conversations with Iger, what do you think he is most focused on right now?

KEVIN MAYER: He's definitely most focused on making sure that ESPN, a company that he really believes in strongly, is well positioned for the future. So ESPN-- he said this publicly, ESPN is his first priority, and he has ideas to fix that and to strengthen it and to change his business model over time. They're talking, publicly, about taking it out of the linear TV bundle where it has been exclusively the main part of ESPN, the flagship and moving that to also exist in an over-the-top world. So that's going to be a really interesting transition and if he can-- if that transition can be helped by parties that could be partners in a substantial way, that's what he's looking to do.