Iger to cable biz: "Consumer is king"

[ALIASd]

Disney chief to cable biz: 'Consumer is king'

Says content should not be restricted on the Web

Reuters
April 2, 2009, 01:05 PM ET

WASHINGTON -- Disney CEO Bob Iger has warned the cable TV industry not to alienate consumers by restricting cable programming on the Web to paying TV subscribers.

Such plans could be seen as "anti-consumer," Iger said Thursday at an industry event, the Cable Show.

"The consumer is king, not us the content provider and not you the distributor," he said.

Cable executives have spoken about extending popular cable programming to the Web to paying subscribers as a way to retain cable TV customers who might prefer to watch programs online at their convenience.

Cable operator Comcast Corp. calls its plan Online on Demand; Time Warner Inc calls its plan TV Everywhere.

One of the challenges facing cable operators and programmers alike is how to verify and authenticate customers who have already paid for individual programs.

Iger said solving the authentication problem will be key to extending the value of programming. Disney has been one of the early major programmers to make some of its programming and movies available on the Web with services such as Apple's iTunes store. Last week Disney announced a new relationship with YouTube offering some elements of its programming from ESPN and ABC cable networks. Such relationships bypass existing relationships with the cable TV industry.

Iger agreed with cable industry concerns that in the absence of Web alternatives for consumers, piracy could develop

Disney chief to cable biz: 'Consumer is king'

[Rex Dopey24]

nothing on tv is ever good except a very few.

[AstroBlaster]

doesn't Disney restrict it's online video...

[merlinjones]

Nearly all cable has anymore is vote-the-ho-out-of-the-house or compete-in-a-consumer-lifestyle-career shows, consumer-targeted-faux-reality-dramas, celebrity-promotional-news and screaming-headline-repetitive-political-spin-analysis in a variety of demographic flavors.

Gone are nearly all the movie and tv libraries, cartoons, music, arts, documentaries and actual news that made watching television comfortable.

No Walt Disney on Disney Channel
No Disney cartoons on ToonDisney
No family shows on ABC Family
No old cartoons on CN
No music on MTV
No music on VH1
No arts on A&E or Bravo
No country on CMT
No headline news on HN
No news on MSNBC
Fewer TV classics on TVLand
Fewer classic movies on AMC

Now Sci-Fi is rebranding to SyFy, so I expect it will soon be brainy-geeks-voting-each-other-out instead of science fiction.

There's still some pure comedy on Comedy Central and classic films on TCM, but I expect these will go away too in favor of voting-out-troubled-comedians or rehabbing-has-been-stars or something like that.

The themed nets have all changed to demo-targeted versions of the same shows.

Fortunately there is still DVD.