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Disney's chief strategy officer has allayed concerns that the studio's upcoming streaming product will be in direct competition with Netflix.
In August of last year, Disney announced that it was ending its agreement with Netflix and will be launching its own standalone streaming platform, tentatively scheduled for launch in 2019. Under the current deal which expires at the end of the year, Netflix has exclusive access to Disney content, including content from Marvel and Lucasfilm. This meant that movies such as "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" and "Black Panther" will find a home on Netflix, usually 3-6 months after they debut on home video.
With Disney's decision to absorb fellow studio Fox, this could lead to Netflix losing a swathe of content, and would position Disney's streaming platform as a Netflix killer.
But this, Disney's Kevin Mayer says, is not the intention behind the yet unnamed streaming service.
"I personally like Netflix. They've got a great product," said Mayer. "They do exceedingly well in the marketplace. What we're doing, we're not trying to hurt or kill Netflix."
Disney CEO Bob Iger also clarified the status of Disney's content on Netflix following the end of the agreement. Iger says that Netflix will still have rights to Disney films that were made in the last few years "for quite a long period of time thereafter", suggesting that only new films will be excluded from Netflix's library from 2019 onwards.
Iger also reiterated the desire for the new streaming service to not compete with Netflix as it will not have "substantially less volume" of content compared to Netflix. As a result, Iger expects the new service's pricing to also be "substantially below Netflix".
[via Polygon]
In August of last year, Disney announced that it was ending its agreement with Netflix and will be launching its own standalone streaming platform, tentatively scheduled for launch in 2019. Under the current deal which expires at the end of the year, Netflix has exclusive access to Disney content, including content from Marvel and Lucasfilm. This meant that movies such as "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" and "Black Panther" will find a home on Netflix, usually 3-6 months after they debut on home video.
With Disney's decision to absorb fellow studio Fox, this could lead to Netflix losing a swathe of content, and would position Disney's streaming platform as a Netflix killer.
But this, Disney's Kevin Mayer says, is not the intention behind the yet unnamed streaming service.
"I personally like Netflix. They've got a great product," said Mayer. "They do exceedingly well in the marketplace. What we're doing, we're not trying to hurt or kill Netflix."
Disney CEO Bob Iger also clarified the status of Disney's content on Netflix following the end of the agreement. Iger says that Netflix will still have rights to Disney films that were made in the last few years "for quite a long period of time thereafter", suggesting that only new films will be excluded from Netflix's library from 2019 onwards.
Iger also reiterated the desire for the new streaming service to not compete with Netflix as it will not have "substantially less volume" of content compared to Netflix. As a result, Iger expects the new service's pricing to also be "substantially below Netflix".
[via Polygon]