Disney Exec Talks Trends, Opportunities and Challenge

A top business of technology executive from the Walt Disney Co. shared the entertainment giant’s take on what viewing habits and other opportunities he believes the industry should act on to better serve video-hungry consumers.

Like other content owners speaking at the National Association of Broadcasters show this week, Disney is driving to provide much more than traditional TV programming via IP services and believes the more options consumers are given, the better off both groups will eventually be.

“Most people still don’t have a fully digital connected home,” said Peter Lee, vice president for business development, new technology of Disney. “But we’ve seen that giving users more choices has made them want to watch more content.”

He also challenged already questionable assertions that empowering users with fast-forward functionality in their video viewing translates into them totally ignoring advertisements in the content they consume.

“Today people skip ads, but that’s not always going to be true,” Lee said. “The feedback we get is that people remember ads much more and are linking offline to Web sites for more information and playing trivia games while viewing shows.”

He sees that delivery mechanisms beyond the traditional TV open opportunities for Disney and others. “If on a portable device you receive an IPTV stream, we have the potential to create content for that [medium] that’s different and adjunctive,” he said.

While the discussion topic was “Making Money Using Next-Generation Technologies,” there was precious little actual talk of business models that can actually make money.

“We have the subscriber model, the on-demand model and the hybrid model,” Lee said. “But there aren’t many new ways to make money.”

However, one suggestion he offered sounded, at the very least, like a smart marketing approach.

“What if we packaged a movie with its [corresponding] video game?” Lee asked. “We could provide the movie ‘Cars’ along with the ‘Cars’ video game.” Given the rise in gaming and related soaring demands for higher-speed Internet links for it, combined with companies like Microsoft Corp. integrating IPTV software with its Xbox 360 console, the he may be onto something.

Lee also believes that promotion associated with traditional programming would not be a good match for innovative approaches like the one he suggested. “What works well is viral marketing, not the [approaches] associated with traditional broadcast programming deals.”

He also raised the specter of the a household that isn’t fully connected still having numerous remotes, adding that usage models based on remotes are probably not the best mechanism for enabling a full media experience. “How many different remotes are use in the home?”

The Walt Disney Co. www.disney.com 

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