Disney sees the need for change

Posted by Kalyan Medapati Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

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For as long as I can remember, studios in Hollywood and music labels have been obsessed with getting rid of piracy, and I’m sure all this while they had known this is one battle they cannot win in the Internet era. Now finally, instead of focussing all their attention on pirates, the studios seem to be thinking of how to adapt to changing times.

On Sunday, FT published an article with refreshing comments from the Walt Disney’s CEO Bob Iger. He basically repeats what is well known, we need to adapt to the change otherwise we won’t be in business. What is refreshing is that there was not much of pirates in the talk, it’s rather about how they can accept the changes and adapt to them. Sure this is not much in terms of strategy, but it’s probably the right framework (moving from resisting changes to accepting them) to evolve a strategy.

It is urgent to think of ways to leave behind business models based on conventional distribution of the content, and move on to the ones that secure as much content as possible behind an “online paywall”. That’s the Holy Grail.