Disney has outlined a series of TV-facing priorities spanning streaming product upgrades, app consolidation and a push into short-form.
CEO Bob Iger used the first investor call of the year to set out how Disney+ is being readied for “vertical and short-form experiences”, with a curated slate of Sora-generated clips planned following a licensing deal with OpenAI.
Sora is OpenAI’s text-to-video model, used to generate short video clips from prompts rather than filming or animating them in the traditional way.
The agreement covers 30-second videos featuring around 250 Disney characters, with Disney indicating it wants to use the initiative to accelerate short-form viewing inside Disney+ and, over time, enable subscribers to create their own clips on-platform.
On aggregation, Iger said the combined experience already offered across Disney+ and Hulu is reducing churn, and that a “one app experience” is in development, which he expects to arrive towards the end of calendar 2026, while still allowing consumers to take each service standalone. Internationally, Hulu has replaced the already combined Star section of the Disney+ library.
Iger said the company has launched its new ESPN Limited app and is encouraged by early adoption and engagement. He also said Disney has completed its transaction with the National Football League to acquire NFL Network and other media assets, adding to ESPN’s football proposition alongside the NFL RedZone service.
In a shift from its previous reporting strategy, CFO Hugh Johnston signalled Disney intends to steer investor focus away from splitting entertainment performance by distribution channel, arguing the company manages the entertainment business “as a single entity” and that breaking out linear networks versus streaming is “not reflective of the reality” of how content is created and distributed.
“We create content, and we basically put it across all of our distribution channels,” said Johnston. Just that some are currently performing better than others.
