Disney has announced a new corporate structure which will give more focus to streaming as a part of a “strategic reorganization”. As reported by Business Wire this reflects the rapid success of Disney+ and will accelerate the company’s direct-to-consumer strategy.
Disney+ has been a great success for the company. This success probably occurred much quicker than Disney would have anticipated in all honesty. It has even begun to compete with the likes of Netflix and Hulu in some metrics which is probably a surprise to even those at Disney.
This has led the company to add a number of features to the platform in an attempt to ride this wave of success. These include a Groupwatch feature designed to allow people to interactively watch shows together more easily.
As reported by Engadget, the growth of Disney+ outpaced projections from last year and. As a result, this new “strategic reorganization” is a direct result of the streaming success of Disney.
Disney announces “strategic reorganization”
This new organization of the company essentially boils down to finding the best way to distribute all the content Disney has amassed. It now has content production with ESPN, ABC, Fox, Lucasfilm, Pixar, Marvel as well as its own properties.
Now the task for Disney is how best to package and get that content out to people. CEO Bob Chapek’s statement reflected this.
He said, “managing content creation distinct from distribution will allow us to be more effective and nimble in making the content consumers want most”.
The exact move of this reorganization reflects a number of promotions and redeployments. For example, former president of Consumer Products, Games and Publishing Kareem Daniel has gained a promotion. He will now oversee the new media distribution group.
The company has an investor day event planned for December 10th. Here the newly reorganized company will present more details on its direct-to-consumer plans.
Details on the reorganization
There are quite a lot of moves that make up this announcement. Here is a breakdown of them.
Alan Horn and Alan Bergman will serve as Chairmen of Studios Content. They will also focus on “creating branded theatrical and episodic content”.
Peter Rice will act as Chairman of General Entertainment Content. He will, therefore, focus on creating “general entertainment episodic and original long-form content for the Company’s streaming platforms”.
Finally, James Pitaro will serve as Chairman for ESPN and Sports Content. He will, therefore, work on “ESPN’s live sports programming, as well as sports news and original and non-scripted sports-related content”.
This is quite the shakeup at Disney but hopefully, one that continues to bring them more success and produces more great content. It reflects the great success and therefore the focus the company now has on its streaming services going forwards.