Bob Iger may be one of the only CEOs who could get away with watching “Desperate Housewives” during earnings prep … During Tuesday’s earnings call, Iger spoke of watching Sunday’s episode that morning on ABC.com and being “amazed” by the quality of the video; he described the Tylenol ad as “very effective.” Iger also explained the timing of the ABC.com streaming trial: he said it was planned to show advertisers “a real demonstration” of what ABC has to offer in the upfront “rather than talking about something that was purely speculative.”. He didn’t provide any stats from the first week but said “the long-term potential in many respects is already being proven to us in our early results” and “we are pleased so far with the traffic.”
While other Disney execs have been careful to describe the current streaming of prime-time shows at ABC.com as an experiment, Iger brushed aside the term. “Well, I think this is an evolving platform, and there are a number of possibilities, but from the early experience that we have had, I think it is safe to assume that some form of free-to-the-consumer experience will continue that is advertiser-supported. … I can tell you that as we see it, this is not an experiment. We are in this for the long run.”
Content Investment: Iger: “One of the things that I like about both the ABC business and the Disney Channel business is that these are platforms that generate enough revenue to not only impact the bottom line positively, but fuel our investment in high-quality branded content that we can then use on new platforms like ABC.com or Disney.com, or iTunes … or that we can use internationally.” For instance, Disney will produce new versions of surprise success “High School Musical” for other markets such as India or Latin America.
P2P: Asked about possible technical issues, Iger spoke of the bandwidth involved in delivering quality video and said Disney “may look for different ways to move product to consumers.” He mentioned Warner Bros. BitTorrent announcement, adding, “while I am not necessarily advocating using BitTorrent, the whole notion of using a P2P sharing mechanism to move content is one that we have been very interested in and actually have been working on ourselves.”
Overall online strategy:Iger: “In terms of the overall online strategy, the focus of the company is to really build out ABC.com, Disney.com, and ESPN.com … to be what I will call networks of the future.” He suggested looking at broadband channel ESPN 360 as an example.
MVNO: Iger admitted that initial results for Mobile ESPN were รข
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