Disney is stepping into a streaming fight with Amazon and Netflix: John Malone

CNBC's David Faber sat down with Liberty Media chairman John Malone for an exclusive, wide-ranging interview on the changing media landscape.
Disney has the best brand in streaming video, according to Liberty Media Chairman John Malone, but it lacks the established customers of streaming incumbents like Netflix and Amazon.
"They have great brand, there's no question, and they really know the entertainment business," Malone told CNBC's David Faber Wednesday. "What they don't have is a massive number of global credit cards. They don't have massive direct consumer relationships at this point, and those are not easy to come by."
Disney's direct-to-consumer service, Disney+, is set to launch late next year and is poised to be the exclusive streaming service for the company's vaults of content. Disney will have to carve out market share in a space dominated by Netflix as other tech giants like Amazon and Apple continue to invest in original streaming TV shows and movies.
"Amazon, because of their retailing businesses and the creation of Prime, has been able to tie into consumer interests pretty globally, and so it's very easy to sell an incremental service [like Amazon Prime Video]," Malone said. "Apple has probably 650 to 700 million direct consumer relationships in which Apple has a credit card [and] a lot of information about the consumer, so [it's] relatively easy for them to offer an incremental service."
Disney sees billions of guests to its theme parks each year, and Malone predicts the company will market to those consumers.
But with billions of dollars pouring into original programming for over-the-top services, Disney is stepping into the middle of a "food fight," he said.

[@pjh2331]

you really need to index long-form interviews like this

[@AllThisPower]

"I still have Barry Diller working to make me rich." Mood.

[@CobraAquinas]

The way he lit up when he said "thoroughbred Race horse business" You can tell that's his real passion. He loves those horses.

[@dejavu6475]

Inspirational

[@edmsing]

Financial journalist David Faber has been with CNBC since 1993, its quite remarkable that in all those years hence, he has never managed to grow or been able to display not one single gray hair that has ever been presented on his head on television. And longtime blond dyed head Liz Peek, writer and commentariat frequently seen on Fox Broadcasts, whenever she speaks her thoughts are taken as pure gospel simply because of her appearance, or so it seems, and has never once appeared otherwise…

[@CobraAquinas]

That cookie study turned out to be false, and unrepeatable yet it still gets tons of press like it's law. It was heavily biased, read up on it.

[@garyschwartz3325]

WIFI will B the Future & CONTENT is alway KEY 2 M ! G

[@garyschwartz3325]

I remember all the Conference calls with OPTV

[@garyschwartz3325]

I have studied this since 1999 ACTV 2 OPTV & Ozark who Created the Beginning ! Kudelski runs the Deal ! I know that John know this ! YEP G

[@OnlyIfYourReady]

Gary Schwartz lll