Disney CEO Bob Iger Shares Early Details Of Disney’s Fox Streaming Plans
During this weeks Disney quarterly results presentation, more details were revealed about the the Fox purchase. Disney CEO Bob Iger told CNBC that he’s “encouraged” about the prospects for regulatory approval of the deal and that it is still on track to take about 12 to 18 months to complete.
“We spent the last 6 weeks or so learning more about their businesses. I’ve been meeting with their senior executives, and I’ll say that knowing what we know now, we are even more encouraged by the assets that we’re buying and the talent that comes with it” Bob Iger told CNBC.
He also confirmed that they won’t be making any major purchases for a while when he said “we won’t be acquiring anything at least of any significance for quite a long period of time.”
The deal between the two companies is set to bring much more content to the company to boost their direct-to-consumer initiatives, and will also allow them to diversify their business internationally.
With Disney set to launch its own direct streaming alternative to Netflix, Bob Iger said that Disney “will not necessarily go in the volume direction that Netflix has gone. That’s not to suggest that we’re going to be low.”
When asked about how Fox’s streaming services would be merged with Disney’s own efforts, he said “I can’t really say what we will do post-regulatory approval on the Fox acquisition. We’re looking at a number of different organizational opportunities in terms of how we structure.”
With shows based on High School Musical, Star Wars and Marvel, it looks like Disney might be trying to deliver quality over quantity. So it looks like Disney have many plans in place regardless of what happens with the Fox deal, especially with reports that Comcast is still thinking about putting in a higher offer for Fox.
Plus with Disney owning 30% of Hulu and Fox owning 30$ of Hulu, its future is also in doubt if Disney is forced to sell its shares to allow competition. However Hulu lost over $830 million last year, so Disney’s 30% share of that bill is having an impact on the company. Hulu is losing money due to content Hulu was licensing from its equity owners, but with Disney is expected to recoup most of this due to its ABC’s program sales, as well as affiliate revenues to some of our various networks.
Disney’s streaming system certainly seems a bit messy at the moment and hopefully by next year, things might be a little clearer.