Robert Iger Believes Large-Screen Version Worth More Than $1.99

Filed in archive Announcements on November 19, 2005

... or at least that is what he said during Disney's recent financial reporting. I think that he is in error, but this is what he believes:

(excerpts from AdAge)

Walt Disney Co. CEO Robert Iger doesn't expect the media company's recent decision to offer episodes of "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" on Apple Computer's iTunes store to cannibalize the company's bread-and-butter broadcasting business. Instead, he said, he views the offering as an opportunity to generate incremental revenue.

"While the iPod is offering a wonderful experience, and the quality is sensational, people would not opt to watch a program on an iPod and not on a large screen," Mr. Iger said during the company's fiscal full-year earnings call. "We actually believe this is incremental consumption."

Meanwhile, Mr. Iger appeared to signal that Disney would be interested in offering alternative forms of distribution of its content for the large screen, but that the price points would be higher for content broadcast on TV than the $1.99 per download currently being charged for "Lost" episodes on the iTunes service. His competitors, NBC and CBS, recently said they would charge 99 cents per show for their prime-time shows on VOD service.

"We have to consider the impact on large-screen platforms," Mr. Iger said. "We should charge more for the large-screen experience than the [small-screen experience]."