In an article appearing in AdAge today, disney's new CEO says that his company needs to "leverage the great migration" of viewers to consumer-controlled media formats." Phew! That's a mouthful. Let me just abbreviate it to this: Disney believes in VOD.

I have deliberately stopped posting references to media people who feel compelled to say the obligatory words about 'consumers are in control' and 'audience fragmentation' etc., because everyone says that now. I will try to post references that only give us hints as to how each player wants to frame what comes next.

In that context, this article did give us some hints:

[Iger] sees the ESPN new-media model as a direction for other Disney media properties. "That's the profile I want to create for the whole company ... content that lives on all media platforms." ESPN provides live sportscasts and interactive games through broadband online channel ESPN 360. The company has also launched ESPN Mobile, its own branded cell phone.

Mr. Iger characterized ongoing talks with Time Warner Cable and Comcast about VOD program distribution as "pretty productive," and predicted that viewers might see such shows as early as 2006. One sticking point with cable systems operator Comcast has been the issue of how content providers would be compensated. Comcast envisions VOD essentially as a free service for its subscribers.

Note: the last sentence above is a common refrain from the content owners.

UPDATE: