Bob Iger Predicts A Reckoning For Streaming Services, Linear TV Death, “Smaller” & “Scarred” Movie Industry

deadline.com:

“I don’t think all streamers are created equal, “ Bob Iger bluntly said today at the 2022 Code Conference. “I don’t think they’ll all make it.”“There will be haves and have nots,” the former House of Mouse boss added, predictably praising Disney+, Netflix, and the “deep pockets” of Apple and Amazon. “I’m not going to make predictions about the others, Iger went on to say, leaving the likes of HBO Max and Peacock dangling in the wind.If survival of the streaming fittest was on the casually attired ex-CEO’s mind on Wednesday,  so was the future of movies and liner TV – and the future is bleak from Iger’s POV.“Linear TV and satellite is marching towards a great precipice and it will be pushed off,” the man who worked for and ostensibly controlled ABC for years asserted, prophesying a “world of hurt” coming “I can’t tell you when, but it goes away,” he added in a steady voice.

In terms of the big screen, Iger praised the communal experience of going to the cinema, and pinned the movie business as far from dead, but stated it was now simply “smaller.”“I don’t think movies ever return to the level they were at pre-pandemic,” Iger said, noting the “permanent scars” suffered since March 2020 saw most of the world shut down from Covid. “Competition, choice ..it replaces moviegoing,” Iger explained of where he believed consumers are actually at, despite the best hopes and prayers of many studio heads.This is an “age of great anxiety,” Iger said of the industry overall, “because this is an era of great transformation.”With that, teased as the “cashmere prince” by host Kara Swisher in her introduction, and side stepping efforts to get him to slag Warner Bros Discovery boss David Zaslav and his own Disney predecessor Michael Eisner,