disney

After a bumpy start convincing media companies to embrace Google TV, the search giant is still trying to get the big media companies to warm up to the software platform.

Disney, parent of broadcast network ABC, plans to meet again with the company to discuss Google TV, which enables users to view Web content on TV sets, according to a Reuters report.

Speaking at a conference held by the news service, Anne Sweeney, Disney's TV chief, said: "More conversations are planned. I can't characterize them as negotiations."

So far, all of the major broadcast networks have … Read more

Hulu Plus is trying to become a better bargain.

The video portal backed by Disney, Fox, and NBC Universal said today that it has trimmed the monthly price of its subscription to $7.99, an obvious sign that the service is struggling to acquire customers.

In June, when Hulu first began charging for a premium service, the cost was $9.99. Then Hulu Plus met with considerable criticism from users. Much of the content was also available at Netflix, and while that Web video service charged the same price, it didn't force subscribers to also sit through ads like … Read more

As Netflix revenues soar and as Hulu ponders a $300 million public offering, a group of people who played an enormous part in the brightening prospects of Web TV is very much overlooked.

Managers at the major Hollywood studios: Disney, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, Paramount, NBC Universal, and Sony Pictures are pretty much despised in tech land allegedly for their anti-innovation and protectionist ways, but the record shows that, over the past year, they have helped build the foundation for Netflix's success and are embracing digital distribution like never before.

Last summer, the studios signed unprecedented licensing deals … Read more

Get ready for a new onslaught of Tigger and Pooh toys, games, cartoons, T-shirts, hats, and every other sort of memorabilia. Disney's new "Winnie the Pooh" is coming.

Disney today released the first trailer for its forthcoming film, which is the first Pooh adventure from Disney to hit the silver screen in more than 35 years. The studio said the new movie, which is planned for a July 15, 2011 release, will feature all the favorites from the A.A. Milne tales, including, obviously, Pooh, as well as Tigger, Piglet, Kanga, Roo, Rabbit, and of course Eeyore, … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--It's hard to imagine anything in a museum featuring hundreds of original Disney concept sketches and art pieces, including dozens of Mickey Mouse, being as impressive as the art itself.

But try visiting the Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio here and not coming away with the strong impression that the way the facility was designed, with its wide variety of beautiful digital displays, imaginative use of video screens, innovative touch-screens, audio clips of Walt himself nearly everywhere you go, and much more, is nearly as compelling an experience as the opportunity to see first-hand the origins … Read more

Doesn't appear Hulu Plus is seeing Netflix's kind of explosive subscriber growth.

Managers of the video portal may be mulling a price cut from $9.95 to $4.95, according to a story in All Things Digital.

Hulu, the free video service operated by News Corp., Disney and NBC Universal, launched a separate premium service in June in an attempt to squeeze a little more revenue. After all, the company is planning to go public, according to a Reuters report two weeks ago. It's never been totally clear how profitable the free-to-consumers ad-based service is for the … Read more

"Tron: Legacy" hits theaters 10 weeks from this Friday, and in preparation, Disney is releasing a new piece of Tron-related content every week. This morning brings a desktop wallpaper-size image of French music duo Daft Punk, who did the entire score for the film. Just yesterday, that soundtrack release date was pushed back to December 7--up two weeks from the original late November date.

Along with the image above, Disney also released a 90-second snippet of the title track, "The Game Has Changed," part of which has already been heard in trailers for the film. You … Read more

Hulu, the video portal that is one of the most successful Web properties created by so-called old media, is planning to raise as much as $300 million from a public offering according to a story published today by Reuters.

The "clown company" has made good. That's how YouTube employees referred to the service before it launched in 2007. But there's nothing silly about a company with a $2 billion valuation. Hulu has emerged as legitimate competitor to the Web video leader, Google's YouTube.

But the race in online video has increasingly turned away from user-generated … Read more

Jimmy Pitaro, who is leaving his job running the powerful media properties at Yahoo, has taken a job as co-president of Disney Interactive Media Group, with John Pleasants.

Pleasants was CEO of Playdom, the online game company that Disney acquired for $763 million in late July.

The appointment of the pair, both of whom will report to Disney President and CEO Robert A. Iger, is a big move by the entertainment giant.

And it looks like another large-scale attempt to clarify and bolster its Web strategy, which has had a long and often rocky history and is the first major … Read more