Gold, Disney end quest to oust Eisner

In other words, they got tired of shelling out their own money to support the campaign they started.

Considering the company was already in the midst of what looked like a recovery, it was a silly campaign to begin with.

Disney and Gold seemed confused about the goal of their mission. They claimed that the company was suffering from creative bankrupcy at the hands of Eisner but was pushing the financial aspect, which as you noted wasn't the issue at the time. Instead of pushing for reform to guarantee long-term profits, they instead played the Eisner game of short-term returns. As is usually the case with situations such as this, focus was lost over time and that brought things to a screeching halt.

I really think Roy & Stanley Gold's "campaign" boiled down to a battle of egos and personal vendetta more than anything else. While I'm certainly no major fan of Eisner, it never really seemed that Roy had a vision for the company other than "dump Eisner." However, I'm sure the momentum they had going into last April's meeting helped strip Eisner of the chairman's title, and convinced him to step down at the end of his contract in 2006. (Which, ultimately, is a good thing.)

I used to read savedisney.com, but the site just became ridiculous... In one article they'd slam the company for not letting Miramax distribute Farhenheit 911, and missing out on all the revenue by fearing controversy. In the next article they'd complain that ABC had ruined Disney's "family values" by airing the controversial Desperate Housewives. Disney was perpetually "damned if you do-damned if you don't." At least in the beginning the site offered a somewhat objective criticism of the company's problems...

It will be interesting to see who will become Disney's next CEO. I had thought Mel Karmazin could be a contender...but then he was named CEO of Sirius.

Joel