CTAM EUROSUMMIT ’08 – BERLIN. Disney Media Networks’ President of Global Distribution Benjamin Pyne has laid out how cable has become the centre of the company’s cross-platform strategy.
Giving the keynote address to EuroSummit ’08, Pyne explained how US cablenets such as Cox and Cablevision had invested in fibre and “the bundle”, expanding into telecoms and later wireless. “Cablevision have used Disney SVOD and both of us make money on that package every month. Every once in a while we give them a premiere, but they have a piece of every other element of Disney, be it Disney Mobile or Disney.com, as it goes over their networks.”
The relationship with cable is a far cry from when Pyne announced the launch of the online catch-up service ABC.com during the NCTA cable show in Atlanta in 2006. “That entire day I was a marked man, every cable op thought we were betraying them. What we said was whether it’s on ABC.com or Disney.com we will more than build the audience and over the past two years we’ve proved that.”
Pyne said that while every technological advance was said to spell the end for broadcast and cable, the evidence so far is that those predictions are far from the truth.
