Disney Chair & CEO Bob Iger yesterday during a one-on-one interview at the IMG World Congress of Sports in L.A. predicted that media rights fees will continue to increase, regardless of whether the traditional cable bundle loses subscribers. He said sports’ value comes from its unpredictable story lines as much as from its live nature. “As long as it stays great, and I believe that it will, there will be not only a voracious appetite by the consumer, but by those that re-package it, re-sell it and redistribute it,” he said. “We’re fortunate that we are in a cycle now that we’ve locked up rights long-term for significant amounts of money for critical sports that ESPN needs to support its brand and continue to grow its business. I don’t see that abating.”
HOLOGRAMS COMING SOON: Iger also said Disney is a couple of months away from launching hologram technology. He noted the technology will help Disney extend its storytelling and engage with consumers. He said, "You can imagine a stormtrooper from Star Wars all of a sudden popping up in a child’s bedroom from a toy or off of a table and engaging. That sounds far off, but it’s months away.” Another technology that Iger touted is a wristband technology the company is using in Florida that serves as a hotel room key, theme park ticket and reservation holder. “That’s making the experience of visiting one of our parks better and more fun because you’re getting time to do more things,” Iger said. “You’re waiting in line less. It’s creating an access that’s phenomenal.”
ONE COOL CUSTOMER: Iger later relayed the story of how his career trajectory changed during the '88 Calgary Games. He said, "I was in charge of programming at the Olympics in 1988 for ABC. I basically set the table for Roone Arledge and the production team, which meant working with the Olympic committee and the organizing committee and all the organizing bodies of all the winter sports to get everything right so that we would have a richness of sports activity in each night’s broadcast. The Opening Ceremony was freezing. But the temperature rose 60 degrees in 24 hours. The bobsled run started to melt and the skiing was canceled. We get to the control room to go on the air, and Arledge would look at me and say, 'What have we got?’ I’d show them a feature on some obscure Russian hockey player. The company had been taken over by Capital Cities at that point. They saw someone that they didn’t know very well acting fairly cool under pressure. I guess they thought it was exemplary in some form. They promoted me right after that to run ABC Entertainment, which was primetime programming in California, which changed the entire trajectory of my career and really got me where I am today."
