CONVERGING MEDIA

Case Study

Disney and Steve Jobs

Convergence—both as cross-platform media integration and as ownership consolidation—is an essential aspect of communication industries in the twenty-first century. Though the cultural, economic, and technological forces driving this megatrend are larger than any single individual, people have shaped this process. Steve Jobs, who died in 2011, clearly ranks as one of the most influential.

Jobs was just twenty-one and a college dropout when he cofounded Apple Computers with Steve Wozniak in 1976, leaving in 1985. In 1986, he bought what would later become Pixar Animation Studios, signing a deal with Disney to cofinance and distribute feature films, including Toy Story.

Thanks to his successes in the movie business, Jobs enjoyed a triumphant return to Apple in 1996, where he would eventually become CEO. With Jobs at the helm, Apple became the world’s leading maker of mobile devices, a key innovation in the evolution of media convergence. His support of the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad were pivotal in the convergence revolution in which one device can be used to listen to music, surf the Internet, stream a movie, play an electronic game, make phone calls, and send text messages. But his legacy also includes the other type of media convergence—consolidation of the media industries into a new oligopoly composed of a few powerful conglomerates.

During the first decade of the new century, Steve Jobs served as a member of Disney’s board of directors, a result of the company’s purchase of Pixar in 2006.¹ By 2009, shortly after Apple became the country’s biggest music retailer, Disney became the world’s largest media company.² The company’s subsidiaries and affiliates are organized into four business segments: Media Networks (ABC, ESPN, the Disney Channel, and Radio Disney); Studio Entertainment (Walt Disney Studios, Pixar, Marvel); Parks and Resorts; and Consumer Products. Disney has also launched a segment called Disney Interactive Media Group, which creates “interactive entertainment and informational content across multiple platforms including online, mobile, and video game consoles around the globe.”³

Though Apple is not part of the Disney family of companies, the Jobs connection resulted in several joint ventures. Most notably, Jobs launched the video iPod in 2005 by publicizing a deal with Disney to sell ABC shows like Desperate Housewives and Lost on iTunes, fusing the content creation of one conglomerate with the hardware and distribution of another. This link between the technological convergence Jobs and his company championed and the business convergence embraced by Disney and their competitors typifies the changes experienced in recent media history—changes that will doubtless continue with new technology and shifting conglomerates.

In the following chapters, we will consider how media convergence has changed the way we read; the way we listen to music and watch television; even the way we connect with others. Ultimately, grasping the significance of media convergence is a key to understanding how the media world now works.