Disney has installed a long-serving executive, Alisa Bowen, as chief executive of the streaming pay-TV provider Fubo, replacing co-founder David Gandler, who had run the company since launching it in 2015. The move follows Disney's acquisition of a 70% controlling stake in Fubo last October, which itself stemmed from a settlement of an antitrust lawsuit Fubo had filed in 2025 over Disney's attempted Venu sports-streaming venture with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery. The abruptness of the change — Bowen officially starts on Friday — and remarks from an industry source about a cultural mismatch suggest friction between Gandler and his new corporate parent.

Bowen, a 10-year Disney veteran, was most recently president of Disney+ and a founding member of the company's streaming leadership team, having helped launch Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu; she previously held roles at News Corp, Dow Jones and Thomson Reuters. Combined with Hulu + Live TV, Fubo entered 2026 with 6.2 million subscribers, but trails YouTube TV, which has more than 10 million and is poised to become the top US pay-TV operator. Fubo continues to operate as a stand-alone company, recently completed a reverse stock split amid de-listing concerns, and closed at $9.56 with no share reaction to the news. The broader virtual pay-TV sector has struggled, with cord-cutting shrinking the overall pay bundle by more than 30% over the past decade.