• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, May 12, 2023

Disney’s announcement that Hulu content will join the offerings on the much-larger Disney+ later this year was undoubtedly timed to coincide with next week’s Disney upfront Tuesday in New York City.

In an investors’ call on Wednesday, CEO Bob Iger made it clear that Disney foresees benefits for its own advertising business and for advertisers from the move. 

And what better time to point that out than days before next week’s upfront presentation -- where this new content union is sure to be prominently featured.

In all, Iger’s comments on Disney advertising were substantial and covered the business both domestically and abroad.

“First, as a significant step toward creating a growth business, I'm pleased to announce that we will soon begin offering a one-app experience domestically that incorporates our Hulu content via Disney+,” Iger said.

“And while we continue to offer Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ as stand-alone options, this is a logical progression of our D2C offerings that will provide greater opportunities for advertisers,” he said.

He acknowledged that the ad marketplace today faces challenges, but ballyhooed the potential for long-term growth.

“Despite the near-term macro headwinds of the overall marketplace today, the advertising potential of this combined platform is incredibly exciting,” he said. “And when you drill down into the details, you can see why.”

“Over 40% or our domestic advertising portfolio is addressable, including streaming, which we expect will continue to grow over time,” Iger said.

“We’re also focused on the growth opportunity in programmatic advertising, and we are well-positioned to scale as the market improves and audiences continue to grow.

“We’ve added more than 1,000 advertisers over the past year and now have 5,000 advertisers across our streaming platforms with over a third buying advertising programmatically today,” Iger pointed out.

He also announced that the Disney+ ad tier is soon to go international.

“We plan to launch our ad tier on Disney+ in Europe by the end of this calendar year, which will drive both increased inventory and revenue over the long term,” he announced.

“The truth is, we have only just begun to scratch the surface of what we can do with advertising on Disney+, and I’m incredibly bullish on our longer-term advertising positioning.”

Netflix: We'll Always Have Paris

Meanwhile, the Netflix decision to cancel its in-person upfront scheduled for next Wednesday afternoon is a stunner.

This year’s upfront sales season is the very first one for Netflix, which launched its new ad-supported tier just last November.

Given the streamer’s reach and leadership in the SVOD space, its first upfront presentation was highly anticipated. Now the presentation will be virtual-only.

The reason given for the cancellation is the potential for a disruptive show of force from striking TV writers outside the Netflix venue.

Indeed, the Writers Guild informed the NYPD that their picketers planned to be there, and the NYPD, in turn, became concerned about pedestrian safety outside of the Netflix-owned Paris Theater on West 58th Street, where the company had planned to stage its upfront.

The Paris is located in one of the most-visited sections of Manhattan. It is catty-corner to the famed Plaza Hotel and just steps from Fifth Avenue.

The sidewalk in front of it and the plaza across the narrow street are well-used by tourists and New Yorkers at all times of the day and evening.

But at the same time, two other majors -- NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery -- are holding their upfronts in two of the busiest neighborhoods in Manhattan. Neither have announced any plans to cancel them.

NBCU’s is at Radio City Music Hall on the Sixth Avenue border of the well-trodden Rockefeller Center.

WBD’s is to be held at the Theater at Madison Square Garden, which is part of the MSG complex above the subterranean Penn Station, the busiest transit nexus in all of New York City.