Will the Internet kill the cinema? Disney focuses on streaming

They say that when the ship sinks the mice flee. And, in this case the phrase is more appropriate than ever. Faced with the crisis in the film business that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, The Mickey Mouse company decided to focus on those content distribution outlets it controls.

Will the Internet Kill the Cinema? And to traditional television?

It is true that the film industry has been left for dead many times, first by television, then by video and later by the illegal distribution of content using the Internet. But, the great content creators saw these media as secondary channels.

After a request from the shareholders, lThe company announced a massive reorganization of its media and entertainment areas, which will focus on the development of productions that will debut on its streaming services and traditional media that it owns.. From now on, the media, advertising and distribution divisions, in addition to its streaming services, will operate under the same business unit.

The company's announcement comes after the losses due to the fall in movie theaters were offset by the success of its Disney Plus streaming service. The service surpassed 60 million subscribers worldwide when there are regions where it is not yet available.

Although from the company they speak that the idea is to create content without thinking about distribution channels, analysts agree that everything indicates that they are going to focus on those controlled by them.

Some of the originally planned theatrical releases such as the remake of Mulan or Pixar's animated film Soul finally saw the light of day on Disney Plus.

The first of October of this year (2020) Disney Channel, Disney XD and Disney Junior they stopped airing in the UK. All the content was transferred to the Streaming service of the Disney Plus company. The company had already done the same in New Zealand and in Italy chen their streaming service was launched in those countries.

There is an interesting fact that the American press does not take into account when analyzing the news. Disney, at least in Latin America, provides much of the content of cable television through channels such as Disney Channel, Disney XD, DisneyJunior, Fox, Fox Sport, ESPN, FX, FXM and FOXLife. If they decided to divert those signals to one or more streaming services, the attractiveness of the cable subscription would decline dramatically.

The new content will be divided into three areas: Studios, General Entertainment, and Sports.

Studios will centralize all of the company's development activities for live action and animation productions from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures.

General Entertainment will serve the same role for the productions of 20th Television (those that produce The Simpsons), ABC Signature and Touchstone Television, along with their news divisions, the Disney channels, Freeform, FX and National Geographic.

Deportes will focus on ESPN and sports productions, including live events and original and unscripted sports material for cable channels ESPN + and ABC, the company said. In Latin America they also own Fox Sport.

Disney controls several streaming services, in addition to Disney Plus has Hulu, ESPN + and Star, nothing prevents using them to broadcast live content.

A bet with an uncertain ending

While Wall Street welcomed the restructuring, it is still a risky gamble.

The great unknown is whether after the quarantine is lifted, people will return en masse to movie theaters and whether streaming services will maintain the popularity they achieved thanks to COVID.

Another point of concern is that of Net neutrality. Many of the ISPs are also cable service providers. It is possible that if the regulators are not vigilant, the reproduction of the Disney streaming services will start to have problems.