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Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) CEO Bob Iger is reportedly about to take a much-needed mattock to a media conglomerate’s magisterial payroll, that has swelled in new years following a $8 billion merger debauch given 2009 that has combined Marvel Entertainment and LucasFilms.

Reports prove that a layoffs are going to strike a film studio — that has been harm by box-office bombs such as Mars Needs Moms and John Carter — along with home entertainment, prolongation and marketing. The cuts are a follow-up to Iger’s 2012 sequence for an inner examination to brand areas of redundancy, according to Variety.

“While Disney is entrance off one of a best years — increase were adult 18% to $5.7 billion in mercantile 2012, that finished Sept. 29 — Iger still believes there are some-more ways to run Disney some-more efficiently,” Variety reports.

Even a cursory examination of a company’s financial information shows that he’s right.

According to information from Reuters, a Burbank, Calif.-based association earns $258,072 in income for any of a approximately 166,000 employees, and $36,687 on a net income basis. Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA), that employs about 129,000, does most better, generating $485,039 in sales and $60,969 in distinction — and even then, it has reportedly been slicing costs during a NBCUniversal media and thesis park business for weeks.

Smaller media companies also perform most improved on this metric than Disney. Viacom (NASDAQ:VIAB) earns $1.34 million in income and $229,352 in distinction from any of a approximately 9,800 employees. Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) gets $844,971 in income and $88,706 in net income from a 31,000 workers, and News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA) generates $715,271 in income and $88,500 in net income from a 48,000 full-time employees.

Keep in mind that these numbers are lopsided given that Disney has been bulking adult in new years, while rivals such as Time Warner have slimmed down — in TWX’s case, by removing absolved of businesses it no longer sees as core, such as song and wire television. That’s because Disney’s preference to shutter a diversion growth business during LucasFilms needs to be seen in a broader context.

Time Warner will slim down serve when it finally jettisons a moribund Time Inc. repository business. And nonetheless CEO Rupert Murdoch had to be cajoled into doing it, News Corp skeleton to apart a edition multiplication that’s tighten to a Australia-born tycoon’s heart from a some-more remunerative promote and wire radio businesses. Given a company’s new merger history, Disney substantially won’t follow a rivals down this path, that means that cost-cutting will turn a new mantra during a Mouse House.

Shares of Disney have risen 32% over a past year, that is zero to protest about … solely that a peers, such as Time Warner (57%) and News Corp (53%), have finished most better. Even Comcast — whose wire business Wall Street seems to consider is always threatened with annihilation — did somewhat better, gaining 39%.

Disney trades during a price-to-earnings mixed of 18.63, a five-year high, so there is no large clarity of coercion to buy a batch now. However, a association should be kept on investors’ radar screens in a eventuality of a pullback.

Disney’s Theme Parks multiplication should do excellent as prolonged as a mercantile liberation doesn’t go too distant off a rails. The same binds loyal for a wire channels such as ESPN. The company’s Oz The Great And Powerful has proven cool to vicious barbs and has finished good during a box office, generating some-more than $198 million in sales. Iron Man 3, a latest section in a franchise, and The Lone Ranger, that stars Johnny Depp, should ring with audiences, too.

Even when things don’t go well, Disney always has a knack for entrance behind when investors don’t design it.

As of this writing, Jonathan Berr did not reason a position in any of a aforementioned securities. Follow him on Twitter @jdberr.