Manager, ABC Entertainment and Late Night Programming Costs

At Disney, we‘re storytellers. We make the impossible, possible. We do this through utilizing and developing cutting-edge technology and pushing the envelope to bring stories to life through our movies, products, interactive games, parks and resorts, and media networks. Now is your chance to join our talented team that delivers unparalleled creative content to audiences around the world.
The Enterprise Financial Services Programming Center of Excellence supports all of The Walt Disney Company’s broadcast and cable businesses. This department has responsibility to account for the programming costs for over 100 hundred channels across our ABC, Freeform and Disney Channels Worldwide businesses. This subset of that larger group will be focused on ABC Entertainment and ABC Late Night and will manage their commitments and payments to suppliers as well as the amortization of expenses on a by title basis. These range from third party shows such as the Modern Family and The Middle as well as internally licensed content from ABC Studios such as Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal.
The purpose of this job is to manage $1.8bn+ of programming expenses for ABC Entertainment and ABC Late Night. ABC licenses the rights to various Films and TV shows and this role will manage the end to end accounting and reporting life cycle of the costs such licenses. In addition ABC Entertainment invests in development spending for potential new TV content. The key objectives that this job needs to deliver include compliance with accounting standards for program expense recognition, timely payment of our commitments to suppliers, and advanced analytics to identify P&L variance analysis for programming expenses/development spend and insights in to the programming assets/liabilities and commitments. A new third party computer system is being implemented to manage/support a lot of the deliverables of the team so as the team manager this position will be responsible for leading and executing implementation processes, and then managing day to day use of the system for the programming commitments for ABC Entertainment and ABC Late Night.
Responsibilities

• Responsible for administrating ABC Entertainment and ABC Late Night programming and development commitments by partnering with BA / Legal to get copies of all content commitments, review and approve payments ensuring timely processing, help identify high risk projects and partnering with ABC Audit define audit plans based on management priorities.
• Responsible for amortizing programing and development costs in accordance with company accounting policies and procedures, own internal control processes, oversee monthly and quarterly close processes including preparing journal entries, analyze and review account balances and ensuring proper classification of balances between short term and long term, handle PWC and Management Audit requests, prepare quarterly close deliverable schedules including account reconciliations, support tax reporting requirements, maintain cash flow models in support of tax and FP&A reporting requirements, reconcile intercompany transactions between production and broadcast businesses.
• Help provide ad hoc analysis as needed, support Entertainment BA/Legal and Talent Relations operations, identify and drive process improvements, achieve efficiencies.
• Manage and lead team of three to achieve departmental objectives as well as supporting individual development objectives.

Basic Qualifications

• At least 5 years in accounting and reporting related fields
• Strong excel skills with ability to extract data, use pivot tables and leverage macros
• Strong positive / can-do attitude and comfortable interacting with all levels of the organization
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• CPA

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience managing a team is desirable. If no specific experience the candidate needs to demonstrate characteristics that strongly suggest they would be able to do so.
• Familiarity with use of SAP GL and TM1 reporting solutions
• Strong interest in TV Shows and the workings of the Broadcast and Cable TV industry
• Business-oriented mindset with an understanding of strategic issues that the business is facing

Required Education

• Undergraduate Degree and CPA

Company Overview At Corporate, you’ll team with the best in the business to build one of the most innovative global businesses in any industry. Uniquely positioned at the center of an exciting, multi-faceted Company, the forward-thinkers at Disney Corporate constantly pursue new ideas and technologies to help the Company’s many businesses drive value, all the while gaining something valuable from the experience themselves. Come see the most interesting Company from the most interesting point of view. Additional InformationThis position is a legal entity of The Walt Disney Company, an equal opportunity employer.