Are Those Mouse Ears or Rabbit Ears? - The Wonderful New World of Disney by Ken Pyle |
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| Several interesting announcements and products have been released from Disney since last month. First, is Disney’s announcement and rollout of their new consumer electronics product offering that includes televisions, DVD players and CD players. These products are on the shelves at large retailers, such as Target. They are competitively priced ($99 for a DVD player) and are easily recognizable by the Disney branding (one of the televisions literally has mouse ears). While they are embracing a retail strategy for a new consumer electronics product line, they seem to be focused on working through existing mass-retailers and not their own outlets. That is, Disney’s retail outlets are struggling and, according to a May 23rd Associated Press article, Disney is considering selling their remaining 387 U.S. retail outlets. From a movie delivery standpoint, Michael Eisner suggested in the May 7th issue of USA today that, “we may be the one that goes directly to the consumer without a middleman.” He said this in the context of their MovieBeam service which will be rolled out in a couple of markets this fall. MovieBeam will use a proprietary box that combines the Personal Video Recorder together with terrestrial broadcast of data (in the unused portion of their ABC affiliates' broadcast signals) using technology from Dotcast to deliver movies on demand. The boxes will be pre-loaded with 100 hours of content, with a refresh rate of 10 movies per week. They have plans for content beyond just what comes from Disney. From an outsider’s view, the MovieBeam device and service seems to tie in with Disney's push into consumer electronics. Combining the advertising and promotional potential from their cable and broadcast properties together with the sales reach of mass-retailers, like Walmart and Target, Disney is probably is one of the few entities that could make this approach work. This strategy, if it works, will allow Disney to bypass the existing infrastructure for the delivery of their content and could have a significant impact on cable, direct broadcasters and independent telcos that provide video services. Some links of interest regarding this story: http://www.cableworld.com/archive/cableworld/2003/04/14/cwd03041405.shtml Copyright 2003 Viodi, LLC. All Rights Reserved |
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