Disney CEO Bob Chapek recently took part in a Q&A session during the WSJ Tech Live 2022 event, where he discussed a number of projects, including the growth of Disney+, in addition to discussing the company’s investments in streaming, corporate leadership and growing innovation at Disney’s theme parks.

Recently at the D23 Expo, Bob Chapek spoke about the idea of having Disney+ becoming more connected with their other businesses, like the Disney theme parks.  He isn’t looking at Disney+ just as a movie service.

“It’s the physical and the digital aspects of your Disney lifestyle coming together. If you’re on Disney+, we should be aware, assuming you give us the permission to have that awareness, of what happened, what you experienced, what you liked the last time you visited a park. And, vice versa, when you’re in a park, we should know what your viewing habits are on Disney+.”

The tech teams at Disney are trying to personalise the Disney+ experience for you, rather than a generic row of content.  They want to create a toolbox that will allow the creatives to tell stories in a more personalized way.

During the conversation, Bob Chapek was asked how many streaming services people will subscribe to, and he said, he thinks Disney will be one of the streaming services, but “not everybody who’s out in the marketplace today” will survive.

“This is a critical-mass business. Scale is really, really important to be able to thrive”.

There are so many major franchises like Star Wars, and Disney has been creating centres of excellence around the world to create content for local content, which he refers to “Strategically consistent, tactically divergent.”  While not everything being created in local content areas will no leave the local areas, they do want to get as much of their content released globally, which we’ve seen drastically increase this year.

Earlier this week, Disney announced a new deal with the BBC for the new seasons of “Doctor Who”, but generally, Disney does not intend to be “a buyer in the open marketplace” after the purchase of 21st Century Fox.

“We’re quite happy to have the output level across our channels without having to be a buyer in the open marketplace.”

He also spoke about how the company has to continue to evolve, while also respecting its legacy.   Bob Chapek said that to reduce the churn of subscribers, they have to keep new content following, but during the pandemic, they had to stop, but the “dam breaks”, and content is flowing better.

“now we can very thoughtfully plan the amount of content we need for each channel,”

Bob Chapek was asked about the future of Hulu and what line there is for Disney, such as did “Pam & Tommy” push too hard.  He said that there is lots of “elasticity of the Disney brand.” He says that they are probably more precious about “what’s Disney” than the consumer thinks.

Once again, the addition of general entertainment content being added onto Disney+ was brought up, which Bob Chapek replied by saying they listen to their audience.  Though, for the past year, Disney+ in the US has been pretty slow at adding much.

This Q&A didn’t reveal anything too exciting, but continues to showcase that Disney+ is continuing to grow within the Walt Disney Company and they have to keep evolving, but as Bob said, “we need to follow our North Star, which is storytelling.”

 

 

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Roger Palmer

Roger has been a Disney fan since he was a kid and this interest has grown over the years. He has visited Disney Parks around the globe and has a vast collection of Disney movies and collectibles. He is the owner of What's On Disney Plus & DisKingdom. Email: Roger@WhatsOnDisneyPlus.com Twitter: Twitter.com/RogPalmerUK Facebook: Facebook.com/rogpalmeruk

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