It certainly will be interesting to see where all of this goes. There are so many tentacles to this octopus. From a DUT standpoint, 99.99% of clients never interacted with the monster and his departure will mean nothing to them. They have their favorite agent, contact him or her directly, get their vacations booked, and all is well. I'm not sure rebranding that arm of the business makes sense. IIRC, it is the second largest (by volume) booking angency for Disney vacations in the world. That's a lot of name recognition to lose and a huge overhead to re-brand to get the name out.
As for the podcast, that is another story. Before the news broke (here) that we are all talking about, the monster announced that he was stepping away from the podcast. And when he did, the complaints about the show and its direction were rampant. Many people said that they would not return because the show just wasn't the same any more. And occasionally the monster would reappear as a panelist, and there was a sigh of relief from the viewership. Well, that ain't happening any more. Like it or not, the Dis Unplugged Podcast is going to be Pete-free forever. Will people return? Unknown. For whatever reason, there were many viewers who couldn't accept a show without the rants of his highness. Can the current crew (Craig, Ryno, Erika, Julie, Teresa, occasionally Kathy) carry the show? Will a more persistent presence of John, Kevin and Corey bring back viewers? Or will they have to audition and hire someone completely new to the job to be the featured on-air presence? My $0.02 is that the current podcast team will be "good", but is "good" good enough to prevent viewers from getting their dose of Disney elsewhere. Maybe not. A return of John and Kevin would be pointless as they are fiddling as Rome burns and people will not forgive them for that. Plus, they just aren't amusement park people anymore and what do they really bring to the table other than 7 minute infomercials for $7,000
ABD trips. Corey has a perfectly fine on-air presence, but I think he falls into the same category as the current team. Good enough to keep people from getting their fix elsewhere? Not sure. Coould Management try to show some good will by bringing back former cast members as a demonstration of healing and positive change? That would be cool to see, but I don't see it happening. People have moved on and wounds are too deep. I'm certain that there will be an effort to ressurect the Podcast. Just not sure if it is going to thrive or bleed out slowly.
totally reasonable. There needs to be accountability, absolutely. We also need to ensure that our own emotions don't result in possible additional victims being treated as enablers without evidence. There is a difference between John/Corey (co-owners) there compared to the staff who worked under them.
