This “uber network” for the Walt Disney Company will be a home “for people to consume our content directly,” Iger said.

The site will have gaming and streaming video content, and will be monetized by a subscription service, advertising, pay-per-view, and even micropayments, according to Iger. (To be sure, he didn’t say that all this would be live within 12 months, but rather “elements of the relaunch.”)

“We have a unique opportunity as Disney because it really is the only true global entertainment brand,” he said.

Iger said of sites like Netflix and Hulu, “The more distributors the merrier–it keeps them all honest.”

As a co-owner of Hulu, he declined to comment directly on the company, delicately praising CEO Jason Kilar. “He did a great job,” Iger told Kara Swisher. “Did?” she questioned. “Is doing,” Iger corrected.

Of Netflix specifically, Iger said, “I’m not in the camp that believes Netflix is going to own the world. I don’t think that’s possible in today’s world.”

Though Steve Jobs is Disney’s largest shareholder, Iger played down Disney’s loyalty to Apple. “We treat the relationship at an arm’s length. We’ve not said yes to everything that Apple’s offered and vice versa.”

New devices rather than distributors are perhaps the most promising change to distribution, Iger said.

“I actually believe that the tablet is going to revolutionize the media business,” he told Swisher, adding that smartphones are a significant part of that movement as well.

On gaming, Iger admitted Disney had historically put too much focus on consoles, and that some of its Playdom games were not that great. He said that after five months of retooling, the new “Gardens of Time” on Facebook is much better, and he personally is addicted to it.

Expect Disney to release more social games with both derivative IP and original IP, Iger said. The company also anticipates more mobile and social networking projects, drawing in part from its acquisitions of Tapulous and Togetherville.

But Bob Iger’s company has also been willing to experiment with digital outlets: The president and CEO of the Walt Disney Company has been a consistent supporter of Disney shareholder Steve Jobs’ iTunes and iPad efforts, and he’s also bet on Hulu.

So what’s next? Time to find out.

8:03 am: Good morning!

I am sad to report that D9 attendees are being serenaded by the sounds of Huey Lewis and the News.

Since you’re not here, you have other options. I’d suggest this one.

8:05 am: Also, because we have a couple minutes before Iger takes the stage, here’s an excellent 2010 profile of Jill Abramson, who has just been named executive editor of the New York Times. She’ll replace Bill Keller, who will become an op/ed writer at the paper. (Many of you are making Twitter jokes at this very moment.)

8:08 am: Need more coffee. BRB.

Here’s a view of Abramson’s coronation from within the NYT.

And in other media news, here’s a good contrarian take on Web ad spending, via Digiday, which has become a part of the conversation nearly overnight. Nice going, Brian Morrissey.

8:14 am: Current soundtrack, btw: Steely Dan.

8:15 am: And here’s Walt and Kara. (Cue Van Halen!)

8:15 am: Walt and Kara promote AsiaD, coming up in October in Hong Kong. Get your tickets now!

8:17 am: Walt leaves, Bob Iger enters.

8:18 am: Kara notes that Iger was at D2, seven years ago. What’s changed between now and then?

Iger: We’re at an extraordinary time. More change than I would have thought possible seven years ago. Mobile, social, and cloud storage will be “very real, very soon.”

8:20 am: Kara: What’s the mood in Hollywood? And we’ll talk about iCloud, because I suspect you know everything.

Iger: No.

8:20 am: Kara: Well, for now let’s talk about Netflix, then.

Iger: All of these new platforms, all of this disruption represents huge opportunities for companies like Disney. We make things for people to consume all over the world. Ability to distribute that stuff in more ways, with more flexibility, that’s a positive.

There are definitely challenges to old business models, but they weren’t going to stay the same, anyway.

If I look back seven years ago, we were in businesses that were relatively low-growth, and hadn’t changed in a long time. For instance, in movies, not much had happened since VHS, then DVD. Same with TV. But suddenly we were looking at the video iPod. And the lightbulb went off in my head: This could be what VHS was to our business, the same kind of potential. “An entirely new opportunity to monetize our capital investment in content.”

8:23 am: Kara: Is this stuff an add- on? Or does it move to the center of your business?

Iger: Well, VHS was considered an add-on, but it became hugely important. I think all of these new digital platforms will become that for movies and TV.

There’s going to be some displacement, but that was going to happen anyway. All of this is going to be incremental revenue.

And remember that this is not just in the U.S. 450 million smartphones will be sold this year–those are all digital media players. And consider that in markets like India, smartphones and tablets are either primary entertainment devices in the home, or the second one.

8:25 am: Kara. All right, let’s talk about Netflix, and the Starz deal that gives them your content.

Iger: Netflix is a good thing for us. “It’s a platform that is rich in terms of our ability to monetize our content.”

8:27 am: What about Hulu?

We like it for a number of reasons. Good user interface, good user experience. “It’s important in terms of our dynamic with distributors.” It’s good to have multiple distributors. “I’m not in the camp that believes that Netflix is going to take over the world…technology makes it impossible to have a monopoly.”

8:28 am: Talk to us about Hulu and Jason Kilar.

I won’t talk about Hulu details, but I’ll talk about Jason. “He did a great job.”

“Did?”

I mean he’s still doing it, last I heard.

8:29 am: Iger now talking about Disney.com, which can become a “destination to learn about all things Disney, and consume our content directly.” Will have a subscription service available, and advertising, and pay-per-view content, and content available on a micropayment basis as well.

Talking about earlier efforts, like Go.com. Since then, they have morphed Disney.com into a better site but it’s not there yet.

8:31 am: When will Disney.com relaunch?

Not going to pin ourselves down to a timeline, but you’ll see elements of the relaunch within a year.

8:32 am: Kara: A lot of companies have digital officers, but lots of people think that’s outmoded, and this stuff shouldn’t be separate anymore. What do you think?

Iger: Depends. At ESPN, digital is integrated, and it’s seamless. At Disney, we have lots of different products, and “having digital departments in each one of those businesses would have created too many silos…and what we didn’t want to do was expose our customers to our org chart online.” So it made more sense to have digital as a separate division.

8:34 am: Kara: Are you part of the Apple iCloud launch next Monday?

Iger: No. But on lockers and clouds in general:

Ability to have your content online, accessible all in one place, that’s a better user experience. Believe that impediments to people buying things include storage: You don’t have room on your hard drive to store all this stuff, and you don’t want to throw it out.

8:35 am: Kara: Will you favor one cloud idea in particular?

Iger: No. iTunes has been great, and we were first there, because the user experience was great. We turned down other platforms because the user experience was not very good, and thought we’d be tagged negatively for associating ourselves on that.

On Disney’s Apple relationship: We don’t have a special relationship. “We’ve not said yes to everything that Apple’s wanted, and vice versa.”

Also working with Microsoft, “I know there’s engagement with Amazon” and others.

8:37 am: Has iTunes made money for you?

It’s been quite successful, but we’re only looking at the tip of the iceberg. Traditional media still makes much more money than any digital. “Pirates of the Caribbean 4″ is about to pass $700 million worldwide. Digital doesn’t do anything like that that quickly.

Tablet is going to revolutionize the filmed entertainment business. On the way here, I was reading ATD on the iPad, and watching the French Open via the ESPN app. A few years ago, you couldn’t do that.

8:39 am: Kara: OK, so how do you get to “Pirates of the Caribbean” dollars via digital?

Iger: Look at all the smartphones being sold worldwide. That’s going to give us an opportunity to do this in a way we can’t do today, via smartphones and tablets.

8:40 am: Kara: How has the movie business changed?

Iger: “It’s become a less forgiving business. There’s no room anymore for mediocrity, and failure is more evident than it ever was.” Home video has changed a lot–you only buy something unless you really like it, because you have a lot more competition for your time. We’re different because kids watch our movies 50, 60 times, and that’s fine with parents, because it occupies their time [So, so, so true: On viewing #200 of "Cars"].

8:42 am: Kara: Will you stop doing everything in 3-D? It’s super annoying.

Iger: “It’s way too early to write 3-D’s epitaph.” That said, we need to use it smartly. The Web as a recommendation engine is huge, and when you go to a movie opening weekend and pay a premium for 3-D, and it’s not worth it, “you can’t hide that.”

8:43 am: Kara: So lots more 3-D.

Well, sort of. We’ll do “Lion King” in 3-D. Not for a long run, but “it’s more than a gimmick”. [This causes Kara to break out into song for a beat. ]

8:44 am: Talk about the Shanghai theme park.

Iger: 300 million people live within hours of Shanghai. It’s going to be huge for us. Investing in tech to make theme parks more compelling. Will create “personalized experiences” in Orlando. Ability to customize stuff in advance–you’ll be able to reserve ride time. Shanghai will reflect changes we’re making in our existing parks, too.

8:47 am: Weird digression. I’m confused.

8:47 am: And we’re back! Kara: Gaming: You spent a lot on Playdom. How’s that going?

Iger: Games are growth business. We’ve made some mistakes, which we’ve acknowledged. Some on the creative front, some on strategy. Spent too much on consoles, now trying to catch up on social games, a la Zynga. We’ll do new stuff that won’t be based on existing Disney brands. We took a break because things weren’t good enough, but have since started releasing new stuff. Gardens of Time is a top-10 game, very addictive.

8:49 am: Kara: What about social? Sheryl Sandberg is on your board.

8:50 am: Iger: We’re already tremendously successful on Facebook.

“I don’t think we will create our own social network,” but there is an opportunity for child or family-safe environment. Club Penguin is sort of that, and we’re talking about going beyond that. I wouldn’t say it’s in highly advanced stages, but we’re doing a lot of thinking about it.

Q&A

Q: Akamai’s David Kenny wants to know about hiring talent.

A: We’ve been rethinking some of our HR practices. We’ve also intentionally kept Playdom and that group up in Palo Alto, because we need a presence in Silicon Valley.

Q: (From Wired’s Steven Levy): Cloud makes more sense if you can move your stuff to different platforms, and different devices. Are you demanding that?

A: We haven’t made any deals yet. But we’re definitely focused on interoperability. We need to demand that.

Q: You bought Togetherville. How’s that going?

A: It’s either going to become a component of Disney.com, or we might build something that’s discrete. But I think we’re going to enable our social stuff through Disney.com.

Q: Also, lots of kids are on Facebook. Can Disney address pent-up demand for preteens for a social network?

A: We have to be very very careful with our brand. “Until we are certain that we can live up to our brand attributes within that space,” we’re not going to do anything there. “I think we’re getting a little far ahead of where we are on this…I don’t want the audience to come away from this thinking we’re going to launch a Disney-branded social network for kids. We might do that,” but not anytime soon.

Q: Last year I told Steve Jobs that I’d bought “Up” on iTunes but I couldn’t play it on my HD projector. What’s up with that?

A: Not really sure.

Q: If I’d stolen it, I wouldn’t have had this problem.

A: But you wouldn’t feel good about it.

I happen to believe that the single most potent weapon to fighting piracy is to make this stuff available widely and in a timely way. That’s one of the reasons we’re getting into digital in the first place.

Q: Another interoperability question. Lots of platforms already, and more coming. How do you future-proof stuff so things you buy now can still be used 20, 30 years from now?

A: Hard to look out that far into the future. Cloud is going to help address this. “But we’re not really making that many decisions today that are based on what the world is going to look like in 20, 30 years.” It’s hard enough for us to figure out what the world looks like in five years.

But! The reason we spend so much on branded entertainment is that we think it’s always going to be in demand, regardless of platform, technology, etc. And while being able to access stuff you bought a long time ago is good, “we benefit from rebuying.” We have a big opportunity to expose people to content made decades ago, and “the reason we can do that is because it’s good.”

With only a week to go before the ninth D: All Things Digital conference debuts in California, we’re announcing the addition of Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky to an already heavy-duty line-up of speakers.

One of the five Microsoft presidents–it’s kind of like the kingdoms in HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” but without big, clangy swords–he runs the flagship Windows and Windows Live division.

More importantly, Sinofsky is the guy who overhauled Office and then led the team that bailed Microsoft out of the Vista debacle.

The longtime company veteran–who joined Microsoft in 1989 as a software design engineer–will talk about the future of Windows in the era of all kinds of new devices and the cloud.

If you want to get some insight into his thinking, Sinofsky also wrote a book about the making of Windows 7–titled “One Strategy: Organization, Planning, and Decision Making”–that’s a very compelling read well beyond management wonk types.

We expect Sinofsky to be just as interesting onstage at D9 too, along with other top tech and media speakers including Google’s Eric Schmidt, Bob Iger of Disney, Silicon Valley legend Marc Andreessen, Netflix’s Reed Hastings and more.

Yesterday, BoomTown reported that Mark Walker, the head of the powerful Yahoo News site, was leaving the Internet giant for another company.

That company, sources said, will be Disney, where Walker will be leading a major overhaul of its flagship Disney.com site.

The property, which has largely been a promotional and aggregation play for Disney’s many family-oriented offerings–such as its popular Disney Channel cable television shows–still sees 20 million unique visitors monthly.

Walker will report to Jimmy Pitaro, the former Yahoo media head who is now co-president of Disney’s online division with John Pleasants. Walker worked directly for Pitaro at Yahoo.

Walker’s job, said sources, will be to find a new direction for Disney.com, including adding original programming to the site, as well as more personalization for its users.

It’s a big task for Walker, since Disney’s various Web efforts have a long and often rocky history, from its disastrous purchase of Infoseek in 1998 and efforts to create the Go.com portal to its savvy acquisition of several innovative kid-focused sites such as Club Penguin in recent years.

Still, like many traditional media giants, Disney has never achieved the kind of digital success its spectacular brand has promised. The hiring of Pitaro and Pleasants by CEO Bob Iger was a sign that the company was going to make some big changes again.

BoomTown will query Iger about all this at the ninth D: All Things Digital conference this summer, where he’ll be interviewed onstage.

As part of the shift, Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger and News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey may give up their board seats, the people said, potentially distancing the two men from day-to-day decision-making at the Web-video joint venture.

The move to a smaller board is an attempt to streamline operational decision-making within the venture, one of the people familiar with the plans said. Hulu’s board until recently has included 12 members, according to a list on its website, including three each from three media companies that have at times differed on strategic direction. It remains unclear how many people would remain on the board under the plan being discussed.

Hulu declined to comment. A spokesman for Disney and a spokeswoman for News Corp. also declined to comment.
Hulu is jointly owned by News Corp., NBCUniversal, Disney, Providence Equity Partners and Hulu employees. News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal (and All Things Digital).

Read the rest of this post on the original site

After Disney named two longtime Internet execs–Playdom’s John Pleasants and Jimmy Pitaro of Yahoo–as co-presidents of its Internet unit, BoomTown did a longer interview with CEO Bob Iger about the entertainment giant’s next Web moves.

I always enjoy talking digital with Iger–who is pictured above in an interview I did with him in 2006 at the fourth D: All Things Digital conference–since he has been one of the old media moguls who seems unafraid of the challenges of new media.

While appropriately wary, Iger acted early and often in exploring digital initiatives at Disney (DIS) that others in Hollywood’s and New York’s media worlds were loath to consider.

“I have tried to keep two obvious philosophies,” Iger said in a phone interview yesterday. “First, that our current business not get in the way of adopting new technologies, and, second, that our business belongs on these new platforms.”

Easy to say, of course, but it’s still nice to hear, given the longtime, incessant and ultimately wearying push-and-pull between those who make bucks making content and those who make bucks making technology.

“My premise is that technology is about an opportunity for us,” said Iger. “And we cannot will it away and should not…because you can’t stop these things from happening.”

That’s presumably the impetus behind the hiring of Pleasants and Pitaro (picture here, left to right).

With an assist by recent Disney board member and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Pitaro came to his attention earlier this year, Iger said.

Pitaro left his job as SVP of Media at Yahoo (YHOO) last week.

And Pleasants was CEO of Playdom, the online social gaming company that Disney acquired for $763 million in late July.

The pair, who will report directly to Iger as co-chiefs of the Disney Interactive Media Group, replace outgoing head Steve Wadsworth.

The shift is a big move by the entertainment giant and yet another attempt to clarify and bolster its Web strategy, which has had a long and often rocky history.

Under the previous regime of former CEO Michael Eisner, for example, Disney bought search engine Infoseek and tried to create a portal called Go.com.

That failed, and was one of many efforts to define the media company’s Web goals.

More recently, in 2008, Disney gathered most of its Internet properties within DIMG under Wadsworth.

Still, money-making has not been part of the mix. In its most recent quarter, DIMG lost $65 million on revenue of $197 million.

In the interview about the new structure, Iger said: “I think we’ve built a framework of assets, and now is the time to create a structure in a more focused way. In splitting the divisions, we can focus more on them better and in a way they deserve.”

He outlined the new set-up, which will have Pleasants focus on the online gaming and mobile landscape and Pitaro on the Web arena.

Iger said he felt Pleasants and Pitaro brought different backgrounds to the task, as well as longtime experience in the Internet arena.

He said that upon considering a fresh approach, he felt that Wadsworth was “spread too thin,” given all the various online arenas for Disney.

In fact, today, Disney owns a number of big Internet properties, including Disney.com, Family.com and Club Penguin, although there does not seem to be a particularly cohesive strategy among them.

Of course, that’s no surprise, given it is all part of a multifaceted media company with a variety of businesses.

Due to its powerful content assets, said Iger, it might be a perfect time for a more cogent plan. With the explosion of devices, such as the Apple (AAPL) iPad and others, the importance of cooperation between content and technology is more critical than ever.

“I think a lot of technology companies are really finally ready to handle more premium content in a way that is beneficial to all of us,” said Iger.

And, he added, it was time for Disney to get more involved in technology, which was the reason for the purchase of Playdom. The move has made it more a publisher than a licensor.

“If we wanted to get significant in size, we need the investment to be greater,” Iger said about the big payout to get into the fast-growing social gaming arena.

And that has meant less emphasis on console games, on which he said Disney had focused too much in the past.

No longer–now Iger said he has planted Playdom, as well as its purchase of the Tapulous music app start-up, in a spanking new facility in Palo Alto, Calif., right in the heart of Silicon Valley.

“We need to be part of the culture and world there in a significant way,” said Iger. “And I believe I have convinced the senior team within Disney that Playdom is a huge opportunity for them.”

That includes online gaming related to units such as sports at ESPN, as well as other Disney brands, such as the theme parks or Marvel, into Playdom games.

While Pleasants will run his part of the show from Silicon Valley, Iger said, Pitaro will work out of Los Angeles on Web initiatives and in upgrading the Disney online experience.

“We want to make Disney sites more of a community and entertainment center than a marketing hub,” said Iger. “Where is gets complicated is the levels of exclusivity and the other places we want to distribute our content.”

That includes being part of the premium Hulu online video site, as well as perhaps even creating a Disney-branded pay service, but also being open to working more with Netflix (NFLX).

And that means a multifaceted approach to all kinds of payment models for Disney online, from subscription to advertising-supported to pay-per-view.

“In certain areas, we will be very aggressive with our content and in others less aggressive, to the extent that each offers us revenues,” said Iger. “Obviously, where there is potential cannibalization, we will be a little more careful…but we are going to push forward.”

When asked about the most obvious management issue–the possibility of clashing with two heads of one division (MySpace, anyone?), Iger said that while there was overlap, he thought the jobs Pitaro and Pleasants had to do were also wide-ranging and different enough.

Plus, added Iger, “They both report directly to me and I am there to see to it that it works.”

In other words, as Disney continues to move forward into the digital future, the content and technology buck stops, as it should, at Iger.

That’s the question a lot of people in the media industry have asked since the Disney (DIS) unit launched its app in April. The usual response, after a shrug–perhaps Disney CEO Bob Iger wanted to do something nice for Apple’s (AAPL) Steve Jobs, who happens to be the biggest single owner of Disney shares.

And that may well be the case. But I’ve since heard a slightly more detailed justification for the free app. Bear with me:

The shows offered by the ABC app are the same ones ABC offers up for free on its Web site. Which means, because of the terms of ABC’s deal with Hulu, that those same shows are available for free on Hulu.

But the Hulu subscription service will feature ABC shows that aren’t available anywhere online for free. So you’ll see different shows on ABC’s free app than on Hulu’s paid offering. Which means they aren’t really competitive at all.

Got it?

Admittedly, that logic will track, if you’re paying attention. And if you follow the TV and movie industry’s use of “windows” and the disruptive threat digital media pose to Hollywood, it won’t sound completely foreign.

And perhaps the first several million iPad buyers will be savvier than most TV watchers. But for most people, it’s going to remain a head-scratcher: Why do I get to watch some episodes of “Lost” for free on this app, but it costs $10 a month to watch other episodes of the same show on that app?

And if anyone asks you that question, feel free to mention this post. It’s free, after all.

There are lots of media companies anticipating the tablet–the entire magazine industry, for instance–and Apple (AAPL) will eventually want all of them on board. The wondertablet is supposed to be a showcase for media, after all.

But very few media companies seem to have any kind of real information about the device. And only a small number will have new stuff to show off at next week’s unveiling.

Like who? Here’s a starter list of likely and unlikely suspects:

• The New York Times is a good bet. Executive Editor Bill Keller riled up the Web with a passing reference to an “impending Apple slate” in October, but wouldn’t say more. Last week, I asked Keller again about his paper’s Apple plans, and he stayed mum again. So did Martin Nisenholtz, the paper’s digital boss. “No comment” doesn’t equal “we’re cooking something up,” of course. And I’m not convinced that an Apple demo would be directly tied to an announcement about a new pay wall strategy, as New York Magazine speculated Sunday. But I do expect to see something from the New York Times (NYT) at next week’s launch.
• Don’t expect much from the big music labels. Jobs courted Big Music when he opened up the iTunes store in 2003. But label sources I talked to this month said the company had only recently begun briefing them about the tablet, primarily as a “courtesy.” Recall that Apple already has the labels on board with the “iTunes LP” format, which would lend itself quite nicely to a tablet. One label official told me Apple has expressed an interest in selling higher-quality audio files via iTunes, and I’m sure the labels would be happy to do so if they can charge a premium for them. But that discussion doesn’t seem to be tethered to the tablet.
• Do expect to hear about “enhanced e-books.” In the past, Jobs has been dismissive about dedicated e-readers like the Kindle from Amazon (AMZN) and reading in general–“people don’t read anymore.” He has apparently changed his mind about the latter opinion: The Wall Street Journal confirmed earlier stories yesterday with a report that News Corp.’s (NWS) HarperCollins is negotiating to bring some of its titles to the platform. Presumably other publishers–all of which are eager for viable Kindle competitors–want in, too.
• Video? Duh. But who? The most obvious suspect here for an initial launch would be Disney (DIS) and its affiliates. In part because Jobs is both the company’s largest individual shareholder and a board member. But also because Disney CEO Bob Iger has made a point of trying out new digital distribution strategies. Here’s a nonstretch: Disney’s ESPN is already negotiating with Microsoft (MSFT) to bring some of its programming and games to the Xbox 360. What about something similar for the tablet? UPDATE: ESPN won’t be announcing anything in conjunction with Apple next week, says someone who knows.
• Time Inc. won’t be there, according to people familiar with Time Warner’s publishing unit. The same likely applies to rival Conde Nast.

A crucial point here is that if the tablet works with the iTunes store–and it should–it is most likely that all of the Apple’s existing iTunes media partners will automatically be on the new device from the start whether Jobs showcases them next week or not. That is: If you can buy “Cars” and watch it on your Mac, iPhone or iPod, then you should be able to watch it on your tablet, too.

But we’re in pre-Apple announcement mode now, and simply porting old media to a new device just won’t sate our needs! So consider this report a work in progress, and a speculative one at that. I’ll be updating if and when anything new comes to light.

It’s hard to find a TV manufacturer that isn’t showing off sets promising to let you replicate the “Avatar” experience at home. And programmers are promising to produce entertainment you’ll want to see in three dimensions. Sony (SNE), in particular, is making a big bet here.

But even if you believe there’s an audience for this stuff, the 3-D advocates have one big problem in front of them: Lousy timing. American consumers are finishing the end of a major TV replacement cycle, which means it will be some time before they’re ready to plunk down big money again for new screens.

If you want a reality check on 3-D’s impact on consumer electronics and the entertainment industry, check out this brief interview I conducted with DreamWorks Animation head Jeffrey Katzenberg yesterday (apologies for crypt lighting and distracted camerawork–you can at least hear him, though).

Katzenberg is definitely a believer–his studio just announced that all of its future releases will be available in 3-D–but even he thinks it will be “a ways down the line” before DreamWorks (DWA) sees a lift from the sale of 3-D DVDs.

Katzenberg, along with Disney’s (DIS) Bob Iger, can afford to wait a bit for the 3-D boom because both studios cater primarily to families who are still buying DVDs, even if those numbers are dipping.

The rest of Hollywood will be more impatient. The industry depends on home video for a large part of its revenue and an even bigger slice of its profits, and those sales have been dropping off dramatically.

The high-def Blu-ray format was supposed to spur consumers to buy more discs, but it took years for the industry to settle a costly format war, and Blu-ray is only now starting to get a little bit of traction. The studios can’t wait that long for 3-D to take off.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100107/are-you-ready-for-3d-in-your-living-room-hollywood-cant-wait/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091102/apples-itunes-pitch-tv-for-30-a-month/ http://allthingsd.com/20091102/apples-itunes-pitch-tv-for-30-a-month/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:34:30 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=12640 Would you pay $30 a month to watch TV via iTunes?

That’s the pitch Apple has been making to TV networks in recent weeks. The company is trying to round up support for a monthly subscription service that would deliver TV programs via its multimedia software, multiple sources tell me.

Apple (AAPL) isn’t tying the proposed service to a specific piece of hardware, like its underwhelming Apple TV box or its long-rumored tablet/slate device. Instead, the company is presenting the offer as an extension of its iTunes software and store, which already has 100 million customers.

A so-called “over the top” service could theoretically rival the ones most consumers already  buy from cable TV operators–if Apple is able to get enough buy-in from broadcast and cable TV programmers.

That’s a big if: Apple has told industry executives it wants to launch the service early next year, but I have yet to hear of a single programmer that has made a firm commitment to the company, which has tasked iTunes boss Eddy Cue with promoting the idea.

Industry executives believe that if anyone jumps first, it will be Disney (DIS), since CEO Bob Iger has shown a willingness to experiment with Apple and iTunes in the past: In 2005, Disney was the first player to sell its programming on iTunes, via a-la-carte downloads. And Apple CEO Steve Jobs is Disney’s largest single shareholder, a result of Disney’s 2006 acquisition of Jobs’s Pixar animation studio. Apple didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Network executives I’ve talked to are intrigued by the idea–they are eager to find new revenue streams–but are also wary, for several reasons.

Cable networks, for instance, don’t want to threaten existing relationships and subscription fees from cable providers like Comcast (CMCSA). And programmers are also worried about the effect a subscription service would have on advertising revenue: Even if the service didn’t distribute TV programs until after their initial air date, that could cut into ratings, which now measure viewership over the course of several days.

But the move to deliver TV and movies over the Web is already well under way. Netflix (NFLX), for instance, already bundles free streaming movie and television along with its disc-by-mail subscription service. iTunes and Amazon (AMZN) rent movies on a one-off basis, and Google’s (GOOG) YouTube is trying out the same thing. Meanwhile, Hulu, the joint venture between GE’s (GE) NBC, News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, and ABC, is figuring out how to launch a paid service that may include rentals, paid downloads or subscriptions.

So Apple’s proposed subscription service, which the company has floated in the past, is no longer a huge stretch. Says one executive briefed on the company’s plans: “I think they might get it right this time.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091102/apples-itunes-pitch-tv-for-30-a-month/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090723/liveblogging-at-fortune-brainstorm-tech-aol-ceo-and-chairman-tim-the-plumber-armstrong/ http://allthingsd.com/20090723/liveblogging-at-fortune-brainstorm-tech-aol-ceo-and-chairman-tim-the-plumber-armstrong/#comments Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:09:01 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=16371

It did not start out too well for AOL CEO and Chairman Tim Armstrong, with a poll on the screen showing most of the attendees in the ballroom at Fortune Brainstorm Tech voting that the Time Warner (TWX) online unit was either out of juice or irrelevant.

The event, which is taking place over three days in Pasadena, Calif., is packed full of Web and media luminaries, so BoomTown will be sitting in the front row and liveblogging some of the sessions here, such as this one that I did for the session with Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company (DIS).

Armstrong did not break any news in the interview with Fortune’s lively interviewer, David Kirkpatrick, relying more on projecting an I’m-in-charge-here attitude and saying confident things like “a challenge is also an opportunity.”

In general, Armstrong tried to be upbeat about the prospects for AOL, which has for too long been the Web’s sad sack of an Internet company.

“We are still in a very large trade wind,” he said, referring to advertisers spending money online. “If someone asked you if advertising [online] is going to go up, I think you would have to say yes.”

To take advantage of that, Armstrong said AOL would be focused on investing “in content systems that connect with advertising systems–that’s a white space we are going after.”

He noted that AOL needs to have the same “plumbing approach” to content that Google (GOOG)–where Armstrong had been a major advertising exec before taking his new job–has had to search advertising.

“You have to take the Silicon Valley approach to content,” Armstrong declared.

Armstrong also talked a little bit about his recent 100-day trip around the AOL empire worldwide and what he got out of it.

“I got a lot of advice from different people about what to do,” he said.

His takeaway, which he will discuss at an all-hands meeting scheduled for tomorrow with AOL staff: “It’s really about strategy. If we don’t have the right strategy, we’re not going to win.”

Which is kind of stating the obvious, but it sounded good.

Armstrong also touched lightly on the issue of getting rid of various assets AOL has compiled over the last several years, like it pricey purchase of the Bebo social networking site.

But some, as I recently reported–such as the Truveo video search service and the information search company Relegence–are staying.

Armstrong also talked of buying, but judiciously–noting to me later that AOL had 900 possible acquisition deals blocked in its pipeline.

Someone call a plumber stat!

Armstrong said he has put a stop to a lot of those deals, including putting the kibosh on a $400 million check he was supposed to sign right when he got there.

It was, as he told me after his interview, a windfall that supposed to go to a big computer maker for a distribution deal, which he chose to pass on.

“Everything has to make sense from a return-on-investment basis for me,” said Armstrong. “It’s that easy.”

And that hard, although he did move the crowd, which was polled with the same questions about AOL’s chances after Armstrong talked.

He got more people in the audience to vote that AOL would “return to health as a major Internet player,” which is–as legions of the company’s leaders have shown–no easy task.

[Photo credit: Brad Markel for Fortune]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090723/liveblogging-at-fortune-brainstorm-tech-aol-ceo-and-chairman-tim-the-plumber-armstrong/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090722/liveblogging-fortune-brainstorm-tech-disney-ceo-bob-iger-has-one-hand-in-the-present-and-one-hand-in-the-future/ http://allthingsd.com/20090722/liveblogging-fortune-brainstorm-tech-disney-ceo-bob-iger-has-one-hand-in-the-present-and-one-hand-in-the-future/#comments Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:55:02 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=16309

Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company (DIS), was the kickoff interview onstage at Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm Tech conference, which is taking place over the next three days in Pasadena, Calif.

The event is packed full of Web and media luminaries.

So, BoomTown will be sitting in the front row and liveblogging some of the sessions here, including this one, titled, “Digital Kingdom: New Business Models for a Media Giant.”

Translation: When you Twitter upon a star, makes a–big–difference what you earn.

Which, right now, is not a whole lot, as Iger and others in the media business know all too well.

But let’s set the scene: Iger looks like a very typical old-media mogul you might order from an online catalog–handsome, suave and sophisticated, a perfect mix of Hollywood and New York.

Thank goodness, then, that he never seems to have acquired that other irksome characteristic of some of his peers–a full-bored panic over the Internet.

In fact, Iger–whom I also interviewed onstage at the fourth D: All Things Digital conference in 2006–has been unusually fast-forward among many of the big media companies in facing the digital music and dancing.

Fortune writer Richard Siklos asked him about a mishmash of subjects, from subscription services to authentication to cable providers, all of which center around a basic question:

How the heck is Disney going to be paid for its wares–because someday those agelessly lucrative “kids” from “High School Musical” are not going to agree to yet another reunion?

“This is the beginning of the beginning,” said Iger, who noted that it would be folly to guess what’s coming next in the digital arena.

A most excellent point that he made several times, adding that it was important for companies like Disney to keep trying out all sorts of things digitally, until they got it right.

“This notion of protecting the present is something that I talk a lot about [with employees],” said Iger, who wants them not to do that so much.

He noted that running a modern media company meant you had to have “one hand in the present and one hand in the future.”

Iger forgot about the hand that you might need to protect yourself from partners of the present–like big-box retailers, television affiliates, cable networks–who are going to come at you with a cudgel for giving the stuff you sell them away free on, say, Hulu.

Hulu, of course, is the popular, tiny-money-making premium online video service, which is a joint partnership of News Corp. (NWS), GE’s (GE) NBC Universal and now Disney.

“We believe in Hulu,” said Iger, who thinks its business model–currently just online advertising–might evolve over time.

But, he added, he was “somewhat skeptical” of any one answer to what is ahead.

As in: Iger just does not know, which is probably the best thing a media mogul can say right now.

Except for one thing he said is always mindful of–to follow, “where the consumer is going.”

Consumers are going online, of course, which is certainly going to require all-hands-on-deck at Disney in the years ahead.

[Update: It seems Disney was keeping its hand in the present for today, as it apparently had YouTube take down a trailer for its new "Alice in Wonderland" movie, which was set to debut at Comic-Con International in San Diego tomorrow.]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090722/liveblogging-fortune-brainstorm-tech-disney-ceo-bob-iger-has-one-hand-in-the-present-and-one-hand-in-the-future/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090505/another-down-quarter-for-disney-but-cables-ok/ http://allthingsd.com/20090505/another-down-quarter-for-disney-but-cables-ok/#comments Tue, 05 May 2009 20:14:46 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=6972 A bad quarter for Disney, but it could have been worse–at least Wall Street was expecting it.

After factoring out one-time charges and write-offs, Bob Iger and company earned 43 cents a share on revenue of $8.1 billion. Wall Street had been looking for 40 cents and $8.15 billion, respectively.

Iger: “We had a difficult second quarter due to the weak economy and other factors.”

The bright spot for the entertainment conglomerate is the same one you see at every media giant these days: Disney’s cable business. Revenue at ESPN and the Disney Channel was up four percent and operating income was up five percent. That’s because those powerhouse channels have locked in payments from cable operators that show up regardless of the economy’s state.

And that’s why you won’t see (much) programming from those channels on Hulu–there’s no way Iger is going to rile up the cable operators who pay for that programming by running it for free online.

Disney’s interactive group, which includes videogames and sites like Club Penguin, but not revenue from ABC.com and sales from Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes store, saw revenue decline 17 percent, and operating income drop two percent.

Here’s the breakdown by segment (click to enlarge):

Write-down watch: Disney took $203 million in “impairment charges”–accountant-speak for “the stuff we bought back then isn’t worth much now.” That includes “$108 million related to radio FCC licenses and $46 million related to an investment in an Indian media company.”

This follows on the heels of a lousy February quarter in which the company didn’t hit expectations.

Disney (DIS) is the first of several big media companies to report this week. News Corp. (NWS) weighs in tomorrow, followed by CBS (CBS) on Thursday.

The Disney earnings call is starting now. I’ll listen in and update as warranted.

Disney CFO Tom Staggs on ad market, economy: “While we believe the pace of decline has generally stabilized, we believe ad buyers and consumers remain cautious.”

During Q&A, Iger has a long monologue about online philosophy, Hulu, etc., but my Webcast cut him off before he was finished. Don’t know whether to blame Disney or Time Warner Cable (TWC) for that one….

In any event, here’s my paraphrase of what I could get down, with a smattering of quotes:

“We found that as we move product to the Web…at least [with regard to] piracy that we’re aware of, there’s been a stabilization….We feel that if we don’t put it online…it will be demanded by consumers, and they’ll find ways.”

Research on cannibalization and piracy in general is inconclusive and some research conflicts with other research we’ve seen. “Some of this is instinct, by the way. It’s not all based on research.”

We feel media consumption is moving to the Web and that media consumption may be expanding. We think we’re better being online than not being online. We realize that Web monetization doesn’t exist yet, at least not at TV-like levels, but we believe that eventually it will.

A lot of the consumption that we’re seeing is incremental because it’s a different demographic. The average age of consumers watching ABC.com and itunes is younger than the average age of those watching network TV. The Hulu demographic is generally younger than prime-time network demographics. So we don’t believe it’s cannibalization.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090505/another-down-quarter-for-disney-but-cables-ok/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090504/welcome-to-lucky-d7-still-gambling-on-the-digital-future/ http://allthingsd.com/20090504/welcome-to-lucky-d7-still-gambling-on-the-digital-future/#comments Mon, 04 May 2009 07:26:10 +0000 Kara Swisher http://d7.allthingsd.com/?p=126

Incredibly, this is the seventh year of the D: All Things Digital conference.

We feel very lucky to get here, especially in the midst of what our own site’s Digital Daily scribe, John Paczkowski, has so perfectly dubbed the “econalypse.”

Ironically, Walt Mossberg and I planned to launch the very first conference in the middle of the last major downturn for tech, in 2001. But, in the carnage of the Web 1.0 meltdown, we actually held off for two years, with our first D gathering taking place in 2003.

It’s been a real winning streak since then for D, due in large part to our great speakers–such as Microsoft (MSFT) icon Bill Gates and Apple (AAPL) legend Steve Jobs.

Both have been onstage many times over the years, including a historic interview the pair of tech titans did together in 2007 at D5.

Other amazing speakers have included: Howard Stringer of Sony (SNE), Barry Diller of InterActiveCorp (IACI), legendary director George Lucas, Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes, Jeff Bezos of Amazon (AMZN), former eBay (EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman, News Corp. (NWS) head Rupert Murdoch, Microsoft head Steve Ballmer, Walt Disney (DIS) honcho Bob Iger, Bobby Kotick of Activision Blizzard (ATVI), CBS (CBS) CEO Les Moonves, Democratic and Republican pols like former Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John McCain, all the leadership of Google (GOOG) and many, many more.

We have had a lot of great moments onstage with all these tech and media players over the years, to be sure, with interviews ranging from the funny to the sublime to the truly disastrous.

But, like the digital industry and the innovation our conference focuses on, we also like to lean forward to try to figure out what the Next Big Thing is around the corner, whether it comes from Silicon Valley or not.

That’s why we’re kicking off our conference on May 26 with two of the founders of Twitter–Biz Stone and Evan Williams–who are riding high on tech’s latest hot thing, which might turn out to be either a rocket ship or a shooting star.

They’ll be followed up over the next two days by a plethora of interesting players, from the leaders of several major mobile companies to content execs hit hard by fast-moving digital forces to a new Internet leader like Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz, who is trying to turn around one of the Web’s great icons from its more recent lackluster path.

And, as we always do, we will be featuring a spate of demos too, trying to see if we can unearth that next next thing.

In the past, the D stage has seen the debut of start-up products like Sling Media’s Slingbox, Aliph’s Jawbone and Pure Digital’s Flip, all of which have gone onto glory. And also some, like Palm’s Foleo, which did not.

While not everyone can attend D, our crack staff is committed to bringing all the action from this year’s conference to readers of the All Things Digital site via up-to-the-minute blogs, photos, videos, tweets, digs and more. We’ll also, as soon as we can, post the videos of each of the onstage sessions, in their entirety.

Until it all kicks off, here is the list of speakers, below, in alphabetical order, who will be appearing at 2009′s D7 conference:

Irving Azoff | CEO of Ticketmaster Entertainment (TKTM)

Mitchell Baker | Chairman of Mozilla

Steve Ballmer | CEO of Microsoft

Carol Bartz | CEO of Yahoo

Mark Cuban | Chairman of HDNet and Owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theaters and Magnolia Pictures

Eve Ensler | Playwright and Founder of V-Day

Arianna Huffington | Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post

Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo | CEO of Nokia (NOK)

Mike Lazaridis | Co-CEO of Research In Motion (RIMM)

John Lilly | CEO of Mozilla

John Malone | Chairman of Liberty Media Corporation (LCAPA)

Roger McNamee | Partner, Elevation Partners

Jon Miller | Chief Digital Officer of News Corp.

Jon Rubinstein | Executive Chairman, Palm (PALM)

Randall Stephenson | CEO of AT&T (T)

Biz Stone | Co-founder of Twitter

Owen Van Natta | CEO of MySpace

Katharine Weymouth | Publisher of the Washington Post (WPO)

Evan Williams | Co-founder and CEO of Twitter

Jeff Zucker | CEO of NBC Universal (GE)

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