as disney dis 070decrease red down pointing triangle prepares to report thirdquarter earnings wednesday bob iger has a lot of pots boiling on the stove the entertainment giant’s chief executive is pursuing three complex transactions at the same time—involving hulu espn and the company’s other traditional tv assets—with the goal of securing the company’s future and reducing its debt load at the same time iger is under pressure to show wall street the company is on the right track despite persistent questions about losses in its streaming business and a legacy tv operation that continues to deteriorate iger announced last month in an interview that espn was seeking strategic partners and that disney’s tv networks “may not be core” to the business anymore indicating to investors and media rivals that the tv business is for sale analysts polled by factset projected that the tv segment will report operating income of just shy of 2 billion for the june quarter down 195 from the yearearlier period once a reliable engine of profits for disney socalled linear tv has seen its operating income plunge in recent years as more consumers cut the cable cord and switch to streaming video as their primary source of home entertainment in the quarter ended in march the tv business had operating income of 18 billion down significantly from a year earlier the ceo recently hired kevin mayer and tom staggs both former top lieutenants to iger who had left the company as consultants to advise him on tv business according to people familiar with the matter news of mayer and staggs’s advisory roles was earlier reported in puck’s media newsletter  disney is exploring a menu of options for both espn and its other linear networks which include abc and cable channels such as freeform and disney channel these people said those options could include selling some networks or bringing on equity partners—or spinning some assets off into a new company despite their declining reach because of cordcutting tv channels still bring in income from advertising sales and cable subscription fees  iger and espn chief jimmy pitaro have both said they hope to attract partners who can bring new content or new technology to espn and the network has held talks with major league baseball about streaming some baseball games in local markets the wall street journal has reported on tuesday gambling company penn entertainment announced a marketing partnership with espn under which penn will pay disney 2 billion in cash and warrants on penn stock over the next decade to rebrand the casino operator’s sportsbetting app as espn bet  in recent weeks iger has told associates that he wants to reduce disney’s exposure to the declining cabletv industry but would prefer to avoid a spinoff of espn and instead attract strategic partners to raise capital and ease the pressure on the business people who have spoken to him said  disney’s tv assets also include several local tv stations on occasion the company has considered selling some of its smaller market stations but the tax penalties proved to be prohibitive selling the entire traditional tv business would likely result in a significant tax bill according to people familiar with the business one potentially complicating factor as disney tries to sell or find partners for its traditional media outlets is its relationship with hearst which owns 20 of espn and 50 of ae networks which operates the ae and history cable channels several years ago disney discussed internally the prospect of acquiring hearst’s stake in espn but no approach was made a person with knowledge of those talks said separately iger is trying to take full control of hulu the streaming service disney owns in partnership with comcast a deadline that could force the sale of comcast’s onethird stake to disney is approaching in a few months and the two companies have already had onandoff discussions battle lines are being drawn over the fairest way to calculate hulu’s value setting the stage for a potential fight next year people close to the discussions said investors will be looking for more clarity about how to fix the tv business said analyst michael nathanson disney shares closed at 8813 tuesday a fraction of the price at which they traded about two and a half years ago when the stock briefly topped 200  “the market is unsatisfied so far because we’ve only heard part of what they’re thinking” nathanson said “people are afraid to buy the stock until they get the allclear sign” another problem area for disney is streaming since launching flagship streaming service disney in late 2019 the company has lost more than 10 billion in its directtoconsumer segment which also includes hulu and espn analysts surveyed by factset projected a streaming loss of 758 million for the three months ended in june a bigger loss than it reported for the march quarter but a smaller one than it posted a year earlier for more than three years disney has promised investors that disney would achieve profitability by september 2024 but in recent months some executives have begun to doubt whether that goal is achievable the journal has reported disney reported 1578 million global subscribers in its march quarter a total that has declined since the streaming service lost the license to air matches from a popular cricket league in india which is home to about onethird of its total customers analysts expect that total to fall to 1555 million