• Ad Age , Wednesday, April 12, 2006 10:30 AM

On Sunday, just prior to The Walt Disney Company's announcement that it would make several of its hit ABC shows available on the Web for free, Anne Sweeney, the president of Disney Television Group, told a room full of cable and telecom industry executives that the habits of young people would dictate Disney's content distribution efforts going forward. The next day came the shot heard round the world that would signal the beginning of the end for broadcast and cable TV: Disney would host free, streaming, ad-supported video, on demand, anytime, anywhere with a broadband connection. Of course, speaking at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association Show in Atlanta, Sweeney had to be diplomatic. She stressed that Disney's new focus on non-linear programming is meant to be additive to the company's "primary" platform of distribution: broadcast and cable TV. To be sure, these should be and are still the primary distribution platforms for Disney and other programmers, but now more than ever, the beginnings of a content distribution sea change from analog to online is evident. It will be interesting to see just how much the tides turn in the next three to five years. As several executives noted, expansion into new territory is about making media consumption more widespread, but as no one was willing to say outright, this comes at the expense of network ad revenues.

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