The Disney Plus-Hulu merger is way more than a streaming bundle

Paul compares Netflix and Disney: Netflix built the infrastructure – streaming, recommendation engines,…. – and thereby created a very data- and engineering-driven internal culture. Disney, on the other hand, is all about imagination, creative ideas and intellectual property - and it just had to plug into the infrastructure that Netflix already bui... See more

These differences make sense when you realize that Disney+ is not simply about earning subscription revenue; rather, it is a direct-to-consumer touchpoint for Disney’s entire business

The legacy companies (Disney, NBCU, Paramount, WBD, Fox) are stuck in a purgatorial period between media systems, trying to wring out the massive but rapidly declining profits of the linear age while transitioning to the sports streaming era. It’s like that puzzle in Die Hard with a Vengeance where Bruce Willis and Sam Jackson must move exactly the... See more

…this kicked off really, not just a transformation of Disney animation, but a whole transformation of how they thought about their IP and their entire film business.

Disney didn’t need a direct-to-consumer SVOD service to successfully tell stories and build love for them; it has always been disintermediated and thrived all the same... Disney+ offers important comparatives advantages to this “easy money”. By bringing all of its franchises and titles together into a single platform, Disney can better tell its sto... See more

With the above dynamics in mind, we believe that there is going to be tremendous near-term innovation in the pay TV distribution business. The internet has made it possible for new entrants to innovate quickly and materially. Consumers will have more choice and convenience going forward. This competition will drive prices and margins down in pay TV... See more

Distributors will certainly play a role in the future of TV, but we believe that three potent forces will be far more powerful in shaping that future: consumers, advertisers and content owners.