Against Netflix, Disney established an international content creation center to realize Disney+ globalization | Titanium News

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On Wednesday (January 19), local time, entertainment giant Disney announced that it has just established an international content creation center to expand its streaming services in different overseas markets.

The newly formed division will be run by Rebecca Campbell, an executive of Disney's streaming business, who will report directly to Disney CEO Bob Chapek.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has provided the conditions for Disney+ to expand from 0 to 1 in 2020, the near-saturation market in North America has created challenges for Disney's streaming homegrown further expansion. Previously, Disney released its fourth-quarter financial report showing that its Q4 revenue was $18.534 billion, up 26% year-on-year, but lower than the market expectation of $18.792 billion. In addition, Disney+'s 2.1 million user growth was also lower than market expectations.

At a time when the streaming stories in North America are no longer easy to tell, expanding the international market has become another path that Disney must take, and it is also considered to be a blow to the process of Netflix's globalization.

Last year, the king of streaming, Netflix's self-produced South Korean realist thriller series "Squid Games", swept the world, especially in Asia, bringing Netflix up to 2.2 million new subscribers in the quarter, more than half of the world's new subscribers in the third quarter of the world – 4.38 million. It can be seen that high-quality original local content is enough to have a huge impact on the attack of streaming media in different regional cultures.

Now, Disney is also following the pace of Netflix.

As a foreign streaming media, the first thing you need to do to produce original content is to understand the local content production and avoid being dissatisfied. For Netflix, before making its own content such as "Squid Game" and "Kingdom", it has signed a copyright agreement with South Korean TV station JTBC involving 600 hours of programs, including the famous Korean variety show "Please Please the Refrigerator", "Abnormal Talks", Korean drama "Pretty Sister Who Often Invites to Dinner", etc., accumulating localization production experience.

For Disney, before building an international content creation center, it also had a wholly-owned subsidiary of 20th Century Fox, India's streaming media Hotstar, because of the acquisition of entertainment industries such as 20th Century Fox. As the streaming stream has also launched in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, Disney has also learned from the experience of localization in the Asia-Pacific region.

In October 2021, Disney unveiled a series of original content from the Asia-Pacific region, including a documentary by girl group Black Pink, a romance series starring South Korean actor Jeong Hae, and a medical series "Mobile Emergency Room" starring Ryohei Suzuki and Hyun-jin He. Disney will also launch the Indonesian comedy series "Bad Signal" and director Joko Anwar's "Bumilangit" series, etc., a total of more than 50 global original plays to open up the regional market.

In addition to Rebecca Campbell's appointment and content footprint in the international market, the latest executive changes in Disney's direct-to-consumer business unit, i.e., the streaming business, include Michael Paull.

Paul, who was promoted to president of Disney Streaming, oversees Disney+, ESPN+ and Star+, was the CEO of streaming technology company Bamtech Media before joining Disney after Bamtech Media was acquired by Disney in 2017.

The frequent changes in the executives of Disney's streaming department also show the importance of this business unit to the veteran film and television company. According to Disney's fiscal 2021 financial report, throughout the fiscal year last year, Disney's direct-to-consumer business revenue has increased by 55%, accounting for more than 16% of the full year's revenue. Disney's streaming service users have also reached 179 million from the launch of Disney+ at the end of fiscal year 2019 to the end of fiscal year 2021.

In the future, in the process of Disney+'s international expansion, Disney's streaming media user scale is expected to break through the bottleneck and climb again after the growth rate slows down. To that end, Disney has just set a "small goal": to double the number of countries covered by its Disney+ flagship service to 160 by the end of fiscal year 2023. (This article was first published on the Titanium Media App, and the author |.) Tao Tao)