Inside the Disney-ITV Deal: How Contrasting Core Audiences Have Bosses “Planning for Success”
On Thursday morning, Disney and ITV confirmed the launch of a new, first-of-its-kind initiative to carry each other’s streaming services.
The partnership will be billed as a “Taste of ITVX” and a “Taste of Disney+” on their respective platforms, with curated and regularly refreshed rails made available on both services from Jul. 16.
It will allow Disney+ viewers to watch the likes of ITV‘s Love Island, Mr Bates vs The Post Office or Spy Among Friends, and vice versa: ITV audiences can watch the first season of FX’s The Bear or Lucasfilm’s Andor alongside other hit Disney movies.
It isn’t the first deal of its kind in Europe with similar “bundling” active in France and Germany. But it could kickstart imitative alliances in Britain. As the deal was confirmed, The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Karl Holmes, general manager, Disney+, EMEA to talk details.
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Holmes explained that the partnership was borne out of the service’s complementary core audiences. “This wouldn’t work if we had the same demographic as ITVX,” he said, “but because [Disney’s] heartland is under-34s, and ITVX’s heartland is over-45 and over-55s, it allows us to put great Disney shows — which do skew towards adults — in front of an audience who might typically think that Disney is all about kids and families.”
On how long the deal has been brewing and whether ITV was only ever their first choice, he replied: “We’ve been working on our relationship with free-to-air broadcasters across Europe for a number of months. And the reason we’re doing that is is they aggregate the largest audiences in just about every market… The ITVX [deal] has got across the line first, but I would expect we will have similar arrangements with other broadcasters in other markets.”
Could this be a sign of the times — or in more optimistic terms, the solution — for U.K. public service broadcasters who have until now been outspoken about the threat that streaming services like Disney+, Netflix or Apple pose to British high-end TV production?
“That’s probably a question for ITV,” Holmes said, “but what I would say is, obviously it helps Disney+ because it allows us to promote content to an audience who would not otherwise see it. We also think it’s really, really mutually beneficial for ITVX. This is not us ingesting all of their content,” he maintained. “This enables ITVX to put their content in front of an audience who would not normally consider it.”
On how success of the partnership will be measured, Holmes said that both parties are planning for success. “We think this will drive sign-ups, we think it will drive greater engagement and Disney+ customers will [be] watching more content.”
Disney and ITV will meet every couple of months to propose and discuss what “taste” of content will be selected for the rails, based on what’s generating engagement and what’s coming up on the respective platforms.
Does Holmes expect to see similar deals made between other streamers and broadcasters? “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” he answered, “but we would certainly like to do more of these with othe broadcasters in other markets. I do think the specificities of the market will differ.”
He continued: “Some broadcasters are less concerned about [the brand] and are more interested in in scale or exposure. ITV is also one of the more financially successful broadcasters across Europe, and has been actually very effective at building up an advanced service, but this is not the case with all broadcasters everywhere.”
