disney

Netflix has signed a new licensing agreement with one of the biggest Hollywood studios, allowing the Web's top video-rental store to begin streaming TV shows from the Disney Channel and ABC TV, the company announced today. The deal calls for Netflix to acquire episodes from some shows 15 days after their original broadcast date.

Talk about good timing. News of the deal comes a day after Netflix bashing in the entertainment sector reached a crescendo and after Netflix announced the departure of Barry McCarthy, the company's chief financial officer.

As execs from the cable industry and Hollywood--including HDNet … Read more

Show up at the "Tron: Legacy" movie premiere on one of these babies.

Parker Brothers Choppers, of Melbourne, Fla., have built 10 Tron Lightcycles. The $55,000 bike is built on a steel frame, with a fiberglass body and a V-twin Suzuki TLR1000 engine. According to Parker Brothers, it is street-legal.

Each bike weighs a reported 474 pounds and is about 100 inches long and 23 inches wide, with a seat 28.5 inches off the ground. And while the Parker Brothers' design is strikingly similar to the Disney movie light cycle, there are some visible differences, such … Read more

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