This was published 8 years ago
Disney plots Australian SVOD service
By Dominic White and Max Mason
Exclusive: The Walt Disney Company is seeking a telecommunications partner to help it launch a subscription video-on-demand service into the increasingly crowded and fragmenting Australian marketplace.
Fairfax Media has learned that the Hollywood giant is talking to telcos about bundling the service, which would be its second direct move into SVOD in an English-speaking country after it launched DisneyLife in the UK in November.
DisneyLife offers more than 300 movies – from Mary Poppins to Disney's Pixar films including Toy Story – the Disney Channel's TV box-sets with over 2000 episodes, 5000 music tracks, from movies such as Frozen, and books including Winnie the Pooh.
A DisneyLife subscription offer could be attractive to parents and could pose a challenge to Foxtel's revenues from children's television. It is believed that Disney will not launch here until it strikes the right deal with a telco.
There are four dedicated channels with Disney content on Foxtel's cable and satellite service. Disney owns and manages three children's channels – Disney Channel, Disney XD and Disney Junior (aimed at preschoolers). Foxtel licenses the content for another channel, Foxtel Movies Disney, which it programs itself. Foxtel is owned by News Corporation and Telstra.
Disney is one of the world's largest media companies, owning brands such as Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel, ESPN and the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) TV network.
It is understood that the exploratory talks are being led byCatherine Powell, the managing director of The Walt Disney Company Australia and New Zealand.
Ms Powell played a role in the development of DisneyLife in her previous role as Disney's head of media distribution forEurope, the Middle East and Africa.
DisneyLife is free for the first month and then costs £9.99 ($20) a month for a multi-user family account. Disney used three distribution platforms to launch the service, making it available through its own website, Apple's App Store and Google Play.
Growing pressure
Incumbent pay television operators such as Foxtel are under growing pressure as studios go direct to consumers using cheap online subscription offerings.
Foxtel's Arena channel is dominated by content from Foxtel's output deal with NBC for its Bravo channel. Much of that content, currently unique to Arena, will become available directly on hayu from March.
Foxtel is already under pressure from three multi-genre SVOD players led by Netflix, with Stan, owned by Nine Entertainment Co and Fairfax Media, owner of The Australian Financial Review, in second place ahead of Presto, which Foxtel owns in a joint venture with Seven West Media.