• Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, October 21, 2009 10:40 AM

In a keynote speech at a business and entertainment conference in Los Angeles yesterday, Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger said that a studio chief today must be both a visionary who picks popular movies and an adept brand manager with a head for business, Dawn C. Chmielewski blogs.

"The business model that formed the underpinning of the modern-day motion picture business is changing right before our eyes, in profound ways," Iger said. "That means you're going to have to change your business in profound ways, or you will no longer have a business."

Iger pointed out that consumers don't feel any urgency to update their video collections to take advantage of the enhanced capabilities of Blu-Ray players, and suggested that release dates between theatrical showing and whatever DVDs evolve into will have to get tighter. He did not expand on that, saying that he didn't "want to make too many headlines today."

But those headlines may be forthcoming, according to Ethan Smith's report in the Wall Street Journal. Smith writes that Disney is close to unveiling technology, code-named Keychest, that would allow consumers to pay a single price for permanent access to a movie or TV show across multiple digital platforms -- from the Web, to mobile devices like iPhones and cable services that allow on-demand viewing.

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