Nate Bargatze: ‘Disney Is Run by a Guy That’s Just a Businessman. That Guy Doesn’t Care About the Audience’

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/nate-bargatze-disney-businessman-doesnt-care-audiences-1236387084/

23 comments

  1. > “I did not watch ‘Succession,’” Bargatze said. “I know it’s the greatest show ever to exist. I’m not a moron. Everybody understands it’s the greatest show in the world. I want to watch it. This has nothing to do with the show. But no one watched it in the grand scheme of things.”

    > “Everybody has lives, everybody has kids, everybody has stuff to go do,” he continued. “They don’t want to sit and worship your art. There’s got to be a balance of appreciating ‘Succession’ and appreciating ‘King of Queens.’ Those worlds have to exist together. Now you have too many ‘Successions.’ There’s nothing that’s a palate cleanser.”

  2. There’s plenty to criticize about Bob Iger but this isn’t it. He literally worked his way up the ladder as a TV executive at ABC that green-lit tons of the type of programming that he’s referring to. He became successful by giving the audience what they want. He’s basically been at the same company for his entire career and never run a business outside of entertainment or the company.

    Some notable shows from his days as President of Entertainment at ABC pre Disney:

    Wonder Years,
    Boy Meets World,
    Twin Peaks,
    Americas Funniest Home Videos,
    The Drew Carey Show,
    Home Improvement

    Current popular ABC shows under Disney:

    Abbot Elementary, The Goldbergs, Grey’s Anatomy, Only Murders in the Building

    And so on

  4. Article says he wants to open his own theme park (“Nateland”) and he thinks he can form a media empire around his brand. A little full of thine self, eh, Nate?

  6. Bob Iger didn’t get where he is by not caring or understanding his audience. Kathleen Kennedy on the other hand….

  9. His Disney quote makes sense in the context of the article. The Succession one does not. Lol There’s plenty of comfort TV shows, come on dude. Network TV still exists

  10. Before Iger returned to save the company from Chapek. People would have said the exact opposite.

  11. Based on the movies Disney has been making lately, none of them care about the audience.

  12. I really liked Nate’s stand up and his rise has been great to see but you can see why he’s been so quiet about digging into his own belief system.

    Nate can’t act and it’s clear his dream has been to be on his own 90s style sitcom for years now. He got close with a show on ABC (of course) but it didn’t get picked up. Seems like he’s got a little resentment about that.

    Rumors in the stand up world is that he’s a pretty Conservative guy, dating back to his time doing stand up in NYC in the 2000s. So not surprised he’s got this anti intellectualism streak to him.

  13. Disney or dare I say The Bob Iger Company™ 
    Is really just a glorified holding company for IP’s that he bought like Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 20th Century Fox and the Disney properties are just an afterthought over there.

    I don’t really consider them an actual studio. If they were, they would’ve made other movies other than embarrassingly overbudgeted slogs based on their IP’s.

    Sure Micheal Eisner was an egotistical monster that nearly destroyed Disney. But at least he believed in variety in movies back when they had Touchstone and Miramax. 

  14. Hey Nate. There’s like 50 reality shows people watch by the millions to turn off their brains and relax and laugh at. CBS, the network of king of wueens, still has multi camera sit coms that they show nearly every night that millions of people still watch. People watch dumb shit on tik tok and YouTube all day. What the hell are you talking about there are so many palate cleansers to choose from everywhere you look

  15. ITT: Nate Bargatze’s just some idiot. And he probably supports Trump. And even if neither of those are true, nobody’s ever heard of him anyway, so who cares what he thinks.

    And even if the very premise of what we’re reading is that *people seem to care what he thinks, it’s a fucking interview, these questions were asked of him*, my fat, sweaty responses are way more interesting, and fat.

  16. I think dude’s just salty he can’t get a sitcom going, because there’s plenty of standard sitcoms out there. The increase in “what about stuff made for the families” argument is getting concerning, bordering on dog whistling now.

  20. The reason there is less King of Queens and more Successions is because sitcoms fell out of popularity and high quality dramas are in demand. It’s not a conspiracy against blue collar America. These people are all such victims all the time.

  21. The business guy overseas theme parks, cruise ships, time shares, etc…

    Why wouldn’t a business guy run it?

Comments are closed.