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Activist investor Ancora on Tuesday urged Disney to put Nelson Peltz on its board, days after Peltz and his firm, Trian, launched a proxy fight with the entertainment giant.

“In an effort to avert an election contest following a year of distractions and disappointing performance, we hope you join us in encouraging the Board to pursue a viable compromise with Trian Fund Management, L.P. and Nelson Peltz,” Ancora wrote in the letter. “Mr. Peltz (or a qualified designee) would make a fantastic addition to Disney’s Board.”

Ancora also suggested that much of Disney’s difficulties in recent years — including streaming losses and and several box office flops — could be pinned on the company board.

“A degree of shareholder-driven change is certainly warranted in Disney’s boardroom following an extended period of absentminded governance, ineffective succession planning, polarizing actions and sustained value destruction,” Ancora said Tuesday. “While it has been argued that challenges largely stem from the tenure of Bob Chapek, the Board was in the driver’s seat before, during and after that time.”

Disney fired back at Trian last week, suggesting that the move was fueled by a personal grudge against Disney CEO Bob Iger held by Peltz ally and former Marvel boss Ike Perlmutter. Trian oversees about $3 billion in Disney stock, but the overwhelming bulk of the shares is owned by Perlmutter, whom Disney laid off earlier this year. Trian is seeking more than two seats on Disney’s board, which is populated by directors seen as loyal to Iger.

Ancora’s announcement Tuesday didn’t disclose the size of its stake in Disney. Ancora owned more than 60,000 shares of Disney as of September, according to FactSet. That would be equivalent to an approximately $6 million stake as of Tuesday.

Disney had a market cap of about $160 billion as of Tuesday, its shares closing down by more than 1%. The stock is up more than 4% this year, underperforming the broader S&P 500.

Disney did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Creators rejoice: Netflix is finally revealing viewership statistics on nearly all of its shows and movies.

Netflix released its first “What We Watched” report Tuesday, which ranks almost all of its shows and movies by amount of hours viewed over the past six months. Netflix will release updated reports every six months, the company said.

Netflix has long had a reputation for lack of transparency about the popularity of its shows and movies. This has led to some distrust in the creator community, co-CEO Ted Sarandos acknowledged during a conference call with reporters Tuesday. Netflix kept its viewership data private as it built its business so it could experiment while not giving away data to potential competitors, Sarandos said.

“This is the actual data that we use to run the business,” Sarandos said. “I’m the co-CEO of a public company, so sharing bad information has consequences.”

Netflix now has almost 250 million global subscribers, far outpacing any other streaming service. That has given Sarandos confidence he can be open with viewership statistics. Hollywood actors and writers both mentioned heightened transparency during their strikes earlier this year as they campaigned to be paid in line with how audiences consumed their content. Netflix has also launched an advertising tier that demands more transparency as brands want information about how frequently certain shows and movies are watched.

“This is probably more information than you need, but I think it creates a better environment for the guilds, for us, for the producers, for creators and for the press,” Sarandos said.

Season one of “The Night Agent,” a Netflix original action thriller, was the service’s most-viewed show during the past six months, garnering 812 million viewing hours. “The Mother,” starring Jennifer Lopez, was the streaming service’s top movie. Between January and June, 55% of Netflix viewing came from original films and series and 45% from licensed titles, Sarandos said.

Netflix revealed viewing information for more than 18,000 titles, accounting for 99% of all its viewing and all titles watched more than 50,000 hours.

Read Netflix’s report here.

Trian Fund Management on Thursday announced it was nominating its CEO, Nelson Peltz, and former Walt Disney CFO Jay Rasulo to the media giant’s board, as the firm wages a contentious proxy fight with Disney.

“Unfortunately, the Board and CEO appear to have no conviction that things will get better,” the activist-investor firm said in a press release.

Trian had initially sought to nominate three or four board members, but after Rasulo accepted the invitation to be nominated, Trian decided the two would be a stronger option, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Disney fired back at the move by Trian by defending its current board.

“Disney has an experienced, diverse, and highly qualified Board that is focused on the long-term performance of the Company, strategic growth initiatives including the ongoing transformation of its businesses, the succession planning process, and increasing shareholder value,” Disney said in a statement Thursday.

Still, Disney said its governance and nominating committee will review the nominations and provide a recommendation to the board.

The announcement comes after Trian reignited its proxy battle with Disney last month. The firm announced it was seeking two board seats for Peltz and another media executive, following what it called “significant value destruction and missteps” that the board oversaw.

Disney shares are up more than 8% for the year, but they’ve far underperformed the S&P 500′s gains. The stock was up slightly Thursday.

Trian’s proxy fight comes as Disney CEO Bob Iger tries to right the ship after a broad restructuring that resulted in thousands of layoffs. The media giant, long known to be a box-office monster, has suffered a number of disappointments in recent years. In an effort to restrategize, Iger will cut back on movies and other new content to better the company’s financial standing, as it looks to cut billions of dollars in costs and make its streaming business profitable.

Disney has said the proxy fight is apparently in part due to a personal grudge held by Peltz’s ally and former Marvel boss Ike Perlmutter. Trian has oversight of shares owned by Perlmutter, who has been an outspoken critic of Disney CEO Bob Iger.

The fight launched by Trian last month came the morning after Disney appointed Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman and former Sky TV boss Jeremy Darroch to its board, in what appeared to be a move to temper Trian’s discontent.

Jonathan Majors is out at Marvel after his misdemeanor assault and harassment conviction Monday, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.

The actor, who was set to be a major chess piece in Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, was found guilty in connection with a March 25 incident that erupted between Majors and his ex-girlfriend in New York. He faces up to one year in jail. He is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 6.

A lawyer for Majors didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The Marvel franchise is in a state of flux right now, with audience goodwill dwindling with each new entrant. Post “Avengers: Endgame” the studio has struggled with consistency of quality and box office returns. Disney CEO Bob Iger has been publicly critical of the studio, saying on several occasions that Disney needs to be more selective about which Marvel superheroes get sequel films and when to bring in fresh stories.

Disney’s stock, meanwhile, is up nearly 7% this year, although it significantly trails the gains of the S&P 500 index.

The Majors firing adds to Disney’s strain. While the actor most recently appeared in the Marvel’s second season of “Loki,” the studio had previously not commented on his future with the brand.

Following the incident, but prior to his conviction, Majors was dropped from several marketing campaigns as well as by his talent agency. Disney previously pulled his film “Magazine Dreams,” once considered an Oscar contender, was also pulled from the calendar.

Majors’ character in the MCU was supposed to be the next big villain of the franchise. Already, he’s portrayed several variations of Kang, a time-traveling baddie bent on conquering the multiverse, since 2021.

In the same way that Josh Brolin’s Thanos was the over-arching antagonist of the first decade of Marvel’s theatrical storytelling, Major’s Kang was established to be the next, culminating in another Avengers team-up movie in 2026 called “The Kang Dynasty.”

With Majors’ conviction, Disney now has to make a choice: recast the role of Kang or completely alter its plans for the MCU.

And Disney will need to make this choice quickly.

Marvel in a slump

Paul Rudd is Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, alongside Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror in “Ant-Man and the Wasp in Quantumania.”

Disney

The Marvel franchise, overseen by producer and executive Kevin Feige, has previously recovered from a string of lackluster films and has a deep well of stories and characters to pull from. Its box office track record is unrivaled. In just 15 years, this franchise has released 33 films and generated nearly $30 billion in global box office.

Not to mention, Marvel has its own theme park lands at Disneyland in California and in Shanghai, and is one of the top-selling properties in the retail market right now.

However, in Disney’s exuberance to pad its fledgling streaming service Disney+ during the Covid pandemic, it saturated the market with hit-or-miss television series. It introduced dozens of new heroes and villains, fundamentally altering the universe in which previous films had been set. For many casual fans, the inundation of content began to feel more like homework than entertainment.

Disney shells out north of $200 million for each of its film and television productions, making it vitally important that moviegoers see these flicks in theaters and Disney+ subscribers watch them.

Marvel has recast roles within the MCU before. Don Cheadle took over as James Rhodes from Terrence Howard after the first “Iron Man” film, Mark Ruffalo replaced Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk, and Harrison Ford is taking over for the late William Hurt as Gen. Thaddeus Ross in the upcoming “Thunderbolts.”

Additionally, Kathryn Newton became Cassie Lang in “Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania,” replacing Emma Fuhrman from “Avengers: Endgame.” And the character of Fandral from “Thor” transitioned from Josh Dallas to Zachary Levi in “Thor: The Dark World.”

Three CEOs of major media and telecommunications companies privately told CNBC they are hoping for new regulatory policy — perhaps in the form of a presidential administration change — to make needed consolidation easier. Existing rules that cap regional broadcast station ownership prevent or deter companies such as Sinclair, Tegna, Nexstar and Gray Television from merging.

There’s additional concern Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan or any other regulatory leaders appointed by President Joe Biden in 2024 and beyond won’t look kindly on the combination of cable and wireless assets. While companies in Europe own both, cable ownership is still separate from wireless network operators in the U.S. Bringing companies such as Comcast and Charter together with either AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile could increase corporate pricing power and eliminate competition, which Khan would likely see as anti-competitive.

There’s also the ongoing dance between NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global. Many media watchers assume that two of those three companies could merge, leaving the third without a dance partner. How regulators would view a combination of those assets is still to be determined. A deal between NBCUniversal and Paramount Global, which would put together broadcast networks CBS and NBC under one corporate roof, seems like a regulatory nonstarter without divesting one of the networks.

“There will be a final round of consolidation in the industry,” said John Harrison, EY Americas media and entertainment leader. “Structurally, it’s not sound in terms of the economics for streaming. Companies need to get their cost structures right as linear TV winds down. But there’s a hesitancy to pull the trigger on anything massive when you know how fast the disruption is taking place, and you’re looking at an 18- to 24-month-long review process to get a deal approved.”

Brian Roberts, chief executive officer of Comcast, arrives for the annual Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference, July 9, 2019 in Sun Valley, Idaho.

If the two presidential nominees are Biden and former President Donald Trump, relief may not be coming. Trump’s Department of Justice blocked AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner before a judge overturned the decision. Trump has also been publicly antagonistic toward NBC and parent company Comcast, calling CEO Brian Roberts a “slimeball” as recently as last month in a post on the ex-president’s social media platform Truth Social.

Ironically, that could make some companies less bothered by regulatory issues. If executives feel both Republican and Democratic administrations may be obstacles, corporate boards could decide to approve moving forward with transformational deals sooner rather than later. If a deal is blocked, they can try their luck in court.

Where’s the growth?

Since the “Great Netflix Correction” of 2022, there isn’t a unifying growth narrative for media and entertainment companies. Cable operator stocks continue to move up and down on home broadband additions or subtractions — a concerning trend with growth stalling in 2023. AT&T and Verizon shares have been stuck in neutral for more than a decade, even as they’ve gained fixed wireless customers this year and likely will add more next year.

Traditional TV subscribers again dropped by the millions this year. As eyeballs diminish, advertising dollars will also decline. Next year will also likely be another year of industry losses for most major streaming services. Disney, Paramount Global and NBCUniversal have all pegged 2025 as their flagship streaming services’ first full year of profitability.

President and C.E.O. of Warner Bros. Discovery David Zaslav speaks during the New York Times annual DealBook summit on November 29, 2023 in New York City

Media executives have spent 2023 right-sizing their businesses and pulling back on content spending to accelerate profitability paths for their flagship streaming services. Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav had his pay package altered so that his bonus is tied to his company’s free cash flow generation and debt payback. Disney announced last month its cost savings for the year will be $7.5 billion — $2 billion more than its previous target of $5.5 billion.

But the industry remains stuck at depressed valuations relative to two or three years ago. Disney is preparing for a proxy battle with activist investor Nelson Peltz and former CFO Jay Rasulo, who plan to campaign for board seats based on Disney’s poor performance relative to the S&P 500.

“The [Disney] board and CEO [Bob Iger] appear to have no conviction that things will get better,” Peltz’s Trian Fund Management said in a statement Thursday.

Beyond financial metrics, several executives privately acknowledged morale has become an increasing concern at legacy media companies. When uncertainty is so high, with few clear growth prospects to generate excitement and layoffs rampant, it’s hard to generate cultures of prosperity and retain top talent. One executive noted he’s increasingly hearing from peers that running media and entertainment companies just isn’t as fun as it was five or 10 years ago.

2024 should be an inflection year for the industry. Either conditions will improve or they won’t. If they don’t, expect fireworks in 2025.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC.

WATCH: It’s very hard to see any strategic buyers for Paramount, says LightShed’s Rich Greenfield

After the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield hit a 16-year high in October, rates have come down as the Federal Reserve said it’s planning for multiple cuts to come in 2024 and beyond. The Fed’s overnight borrowing rate is at between 5.25% and 5.5% — significantly elevated from where rates had been since the financial crisis of 2008.

Rate cuts next year could push transformational deal-making to 2025. If media or technology companies want to acquire large assets and don’t have the cash on hand, they’ll want to wait for cheaper money.

“I had lunch in late November with the CEO of a major studio, and what he expressed is uncertainty around operating in this monetary policy environment,” said Martin. “What is the cost of capital? Am I better served punting until 2025 where I have more clarity when interest rates come down or remain static?” 

Still, major deals could be announced in 2024 with an assumption that the process of closing them will take 12 to 18 months. By that time, companies may bet on interest rates falling to levels more in line with the past 10 years.

Shari Redstone has held talks for the last few months to potentially sell National Amusements, the controlling holding company of Paramount Global, according to people familiar with the matter who declined to be identified because the discussions are private. If that deal occurs in 2024, it could kick off a wave of strategic transactions, including selling dying cable networks to private equity firms, throughout the media and entertainment industry regardless of the macroeconomic environment.

National Amusements declined to comment.

It’s human nature for a new year to bring optimism and hope.

For executives, investors and employees in the entertainment and telecommunications industries, 2024 is set to disappoint.

Maybe that’s too grinchy. Some things will get better. The actors’ and writers’ strikes are over. The 2024 U.S. presidential election should help boost advertising dollars as global TV ad revenue is on pace to decline 18% this year, according to media investment firm GroupM.

Companies such as Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney cut thousands of jobs and dramatically slashed content costs to boost free cash flow and pay down debt. That could give investors a reason to be more sanguine about their business prospects next year. Disney recently restored its dividend for early 2024 after suspending it for more than three years.

Still, legacy media companies including Disney, Paramount Global, Warner Bros. Discovery and Comcast’s NBCUniversal are trying to figure out what investors want since pulling back on a narrative of subscription streaming video growth that dominated 2020 and 2021. Warner Bros. Discovery and Comcast have outperformed the S&P 500 in 2023, though just barely. Disney and Paramount Global have underperformed.

The overriding narrative for 2024 appears to be one of uncertainty on three key fronts: interest rates, regulatory policy and overall growth prospects. The industry should have more clarity in 2025 on all three topics to propel it forward, said Corey Martin, managing partner at entertainment law firm Granderson Des Rochers. Next year will probably be defined by preparation for action rather than actual transformation, Martin said.

“2024 is probably going to be a year of sustained uncertainty,” said Martin. “It’s really a continuation of a pattern we’ve seen since the midpoint of 2022.”

Private equity firm RedBird Capital, founded by Gerry Cardinale, has been stockpiling executive talent, including two former NBCUniversal heads in Jeff Zucker and Jeff Shell, who begins work at the private equity firm in early 2024.

This executive made the bold call that RedBird won’t just acquire Shari Redstone’s National Amusements but all of Paramount Global, backed by a consortium of outside funding, including money from David Ellison and BDT Capital, the merchant bank run by Byron Trott that backed Redstone earlier this year.

Zucker could then run Paramount Global and do the dirty work of deciding what part of the company he wants to run and what to sell. Still, this executive said Zucker would keep most of the assets and attempt to prove the company was undervalued as a publicly traded entity.

Media pundits on CNBC love to say that subscription streaming will eventually be bundled in something that kind of looks like (and is priced like) traditional cable TV.

But years into the streaming wars, this hasn’t happened. No one has emerged as the dominant aggregator. No bundle of many services exists. It’s complicated to get media companies on board to agree to what something like that would look like.

This executive said 2024 will be the year companies finally get serious about bundling, predicting Disney would agree to bundle its trio of streaming services (Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+) with Max and Netflix to offer a selection of streaming services — at a discount — that rivals cable TV.

A second executive noted that such a discount will probably need to be championed by an anchor distributor. This executive’s guess is that it will be Amazon. He also predicted Paramount Global’s Paramount+ and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max will be a part of the first streaming bundle that Amazon offers.

Sticking with the sports theme, the regional sports network business may or may not be collapsing. Broadcast station groups have been in talks with the NBA, NHL and MLB for much of the year about picking up local games if certain RSNs fail.

Poaching teams from Diamond Sports Group, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and carries the games of more than 40 professional sports teams, has been the primary target thus far for companies such as E.W. Scripps and Gray Television. Scripps now carries games from the NHL’s Las Vegas Golden Knights and Arizona Coyotes. Gray reached a deal to broadcast the NBA’s Phoenix Suns earlier this year.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon is in talks to invest in Diamond Sports Group to keep the company afloat while potentially using Prime Video as a landing home for streaming rights.

This executive said he believes the broadcast station groups will emerge as the primary winner of rights as leagues will push for the expanded reach of broadcast TV while cable subscribers dwindle.