Disney CEO Robert Iger Discusses Entertainment, New Media

Disney’s Iger Does Not See ESPN Streaming All Of Its Content

In a Q&A with the WALL STREET JOURNAL’s Kara Swisher, Disney CEO Robert Iger said the company has seen 6-7 million downloads of ABC shows since they became available on ABC.com in October, with “Lost” the most downloaded, followed by “Desperate Housewives.” The shows come with ads that cannot be skipped and Iger said of the spots, “The result has been pretty dramatic. Over 85% of the people who streamed remember the advertiser that was advertising (on) the program they streamed.” Iger, on whether ESPN will begin streaming all its content online: “I don’t see ESPN streaming its entire service (because the) satellite and cable platforms pay us a huge amount of money (for the right to carry ESPN), but ESPN is already reaching its customers directly in many other forms on either ESPN.com or through other services. ... I don’t think you’re going to see one media model in the future. It’ll be many.” Iger, on user-generated Web content: “People are fascinated with user-generated content. [But] I don’t think it holds a candle to what I’ll call professionally generated content” (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6/19).