Disney CEO Jettisons Once-Sacred Businesses During Pandemic (2)

When Walt Disney Co. announced that it had closed more than 20 foreign TV channels last week, Chief Executive Officer Bob Chapek looked like he was taking the knife to a big chunk of the company’s international audience.

The move would have been unthinkable a few years ago. But Chapek -- less than six months after succeeding longtime CEO Bob Iger -- is using the Covid-19 crisis to transform Disney much faster than expected, all with an eye toward making the company an online juggernaut that reaches far more people worldwide.

Besides scrapping the networks, he shut down a musical ...