Inside Disney’s New York Stream Factory
That operational know-how, and the group’s Chelsea Market home base, came to Disney through its deal to acquire majority control of Major League Baseball’s BAMTech for $2.6 billion. It’s a business that has been pumping video online since 2002 and has an unmatched track record, says streaming analyst and consultant Dan Rayburn — who calls DSS the “special forces of the streaming industry.”
“Disney Streaming Services has more expertise and more resources than anybody else in the industry,” he says. “They are just snapping up so many good people in the industry.”
What made BAMTech different is that it started life with a mission exactly aligned with Disney’s goals: taking media rights (in MLB’s case, launching the MLB.tv service) and monetizing them, says Joe Inzerillo, EVP and CTO of Disney Streaming Services.
Over the past year, Paull, who previously was Amazon’s VP of digital video, has dramatically expanded Disney Streaming Services to more than double its headcount, with most of its 1,600 employees based in New York. His hires have included senior VP of data Laura Evans, formerly with the New York Times, who has formed a new team dedicated to data and analytics. “We’re understanding user behavior,” she says. “And we’re reusing that data to enhance the customer experience.” Evans’ team also is applying data to marketing, with customer acquisition and retention programs.
Along with New York, DSS runs video operations centers in Amsterdam and San Francisco, and eventually will open a facility serving Asia-Pacific. The global scope of Disney’s direct-to-consumer strategy and aggressive rollout plans presents another significant challenge for Paull. The company expects Disney Plus to be in all major markets by 2021, starting with Canada, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand in November.
Disney Plus promises a set of robust features, including 4K content, the ability to download everything in the catalog for offline viewing, up to seven profiles per account, and up to four simultaneous streams. But the relatively fast timeline to launch meant some ended up getting tabled for now, including the ability to submit content ratings (although Paull argues such omissions can keep things simple).
See the full story here: https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/disney-streaming-services-new-york-disney-plus-1203354576/