Disney-Pixar, UPN-WB

[SOURCE: Center for Creative Voices in Media 1/24]
[Commentary] What do the deals mean? In Disney's case, the purchase of Pixar was an admission of defeat, as well as a bold attempt to embrace the future. On the whole, even though Pixar's independent voice and vision is no longer independent, we think it's a good thing. We don't think that Disney's famously bureaucratic culture will put the creative kibbosh on Steve Jobs and especially John Lasseter, the top Pixar animator and former Disney animator, who will now take over Disney Animation and surgically implant and graft Pixarians into it. And putting Steve Jobs and Apple and iTunes and iPod and Pixar together with Disney will initiate a wave of creative rethinking of everything. At least, let's hope so. AS FOR UPN-WB, this is a mixed and muddy picture, but again, we're hopeful. there will be a number of local broadcast stations that will now have no network affiliation, as there were in the old days. Those stations will be looking for new content to fill up their schedules. Now, there's no doubt some will just show old network reruns. But our hope is that some of them Go Native and actually show some locally produced content, or that they become a way for non-network voices to once again reach a mass audience over the airwaves, as they were before Fox, UPN, and WB signed them up as affiliates. We also think this combination is evidence of the sea change in the TV industry brought about by the Net, the iPod, and other new means of distribution. Outside of the largest markets and the strongest stations, the local station business will not be not a good business for the networks. Their distribution of original content will bypass the weak and the small stations, instead reaching consumers via cable, Net, DVD, and iPod. Warners no longer needed a weak and unprofitable network to protect its profitable TV content production business. If it has to, it can do that by starting a new basic cable net on Time Warner Cable or a new channel on AOL.
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