Media Wonk

Quien es mas digital? - January 10, 2007

LAS VEGAS--Like a couple of out-of-shape old heavyweights, Disney and CBS went to Vegas to launch their comebacks.
On day one of the Consumer Electronics Show here, Disney chairman/CEO Bob Iger used his keynote address to repurpose the company built on hand-drawn animation as a cross-platform, interactive digital media “portal.”
Disney is now a company where “art challenges technology, and technology inspires art,” he declared.
No longer will Disney simply create and distribute movies and TV programming. It will now create “channels” and “virtual worlds,” where users can create their own “rich experiences” drawing on Disney’s characters and content.
Iger used his speech to preview a new massively multiplayer game based on the hugely successful Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise, where fans can create their own pirate adventures.
Similar efforts built around the Pixar hits Toy Story and Cars are in the pipeline.
Even more daringly for an old-line media company, the new Disney.com includes a featured called Disney XD, for Xtreme Digital, where users will be able to mash up and share selected Disney content on a MySpace-like social network.
Not to be outdone, CBS president/CEO Les Moonves took the CES keynote stage the next day to demonstrate that The Eye can be just as quick as The Mouse.
“There’s no such thing anymore as old media or new media,” Moonves declared. “We’re all just media, playing on the same big digital field.”
To prove it, Moonves brought out the co-creator of Slingbox, Blake Krikorian, to demonstrate a new service called Clip+Sling that will allow Slingbox owners to share snippets of CBS programming with friends.
That’s just the sort of thing that used to get you sued by CBS.
“The collaboration is proof that a big media company doesn't have to fear new technology,” Krikorian beamed. “I think we all agree that's great for business."
Well, maybe.
As Moonves added after Krikorian left the stage, “I think it should have great possibilities if it's done like they're doing it--with great consideration for the content owner.”
Aye, that’s always the rub. When you play on the big digital field, you don’t always get to set the rules.
But with his boss, Sumner Redstone, complaining of being “humiliated” by Rupert Murdoch in the contest for MySpace, you can’t really blame Moonves for coming out swinging.
That botched bid for digital domination cost Moonves’ counterpart at Viacom Inc., Tom Freston, his job, after all.
“Digital” is the new “synergy,” and you need a lot of it if you want to be “competitive.”
So, quien es mas digital?

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