Bob Iger: Traditional TV, Film Biz Face ‘World of Hurt’ as Streaming Transforms Entertainment
variety.comAndrew Wallenstein President and Chief Media Analyst Bob Iger shared a pessimistic outlook on the future of movies and traditional TV in an interview Wednesday at the Code Conference in Los Angeles.
The former Disney CEO was, however, particularly bullish on the growing number of streaming services embracing Madison Avenue, including Disney+, but predicted that not all of the current market entrants would survive in the long term. “Advertising will thrive in the streaming world,” Iger told moderator Kara Swisher from the stage at the Beverly Hilton. “I think what Netflix is going to do in advertising, what Disney announced, those are smart moves because it’s going to give consumers choice.” Iger took a dim view of the movie business in theaters, making clear that he doesn’t think “movies ever return in terms of going to the level they were at pre-pandemic.” He went so far as to say that the success of big streaming shows like “House of the Dragon” and “The Mandalorian” has led him to rethink some of the conventional wisdom he used to believe as true. “The movie industry used to argue that you couldn’t create cultural impact without people going to the movie theater around the globe that same weekend,” he said. “I don’t agree anymore.
I probably made that argument at some point.” Another notion he was forced to rethink, he admitted, was the prospects for Apple TV+ to succeed as quickly as it has. “I was on the board of Apple when they decided to go into the streaming business of television and movies,” he said. “I thought it would take a long time.
They’ve done better than I expected them to do because it wasn’t a business they were in at all.” Iger said he was still bullish on Disney because the company had leaned
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