With the world’s richest soccer league, England’s Premier League, kicking off this weekend, mobile and online are set to play a bigger part than ever this season. ESPN (NYSE: DIS) and Perform Group are launching new pay-for apps, while ESPN has secured more rights to show live matches on TV…

With this morning’s announcement of an estimated $1 billion streaming movie deal between Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) and Epix in the minds of analysts on the Disney (NYSE: DIS) Q2 earnings call, CEO Bob Iger says that he is looking to find a model for offering premium DVD rentals, while taking…

In what was an already strong Q2, Disney’s interactive segment serves as the cherry on top, rising 74 percent to $197 million over last year’s period. Meanwhile, the unit’s operating loss narrowed somewhat to $65 million from $75 million in Q209. The improvements were driven by the release of more…

		EPS*	Rev. vs Q209	Net Inc. vs Q209
The Walt Disney Co.	Release		16%	39.4%

* vs. Analysts' Estimates: Beat Met Missed

With the World Cup final coming Sunday, ESPN (NYSE: DIS) provided us with an update on how much traffic its digital properties have generated from the tournament to date. In total, ESPN says that a staggering 110,000 people per minute have been using its online and mobile services to access…

How does ESPN (NYSE: DIS) keep its growing empire fed? With deals like the exclusive 12-year pact with the ACC announced today. In exchange for a serious chunk of change—SBJput it at nearly $2 billion or $155 million a year—ESPN gets more than 4,800 events to spread across its various…

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), which had much success bringing Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) to Xbox Live, and then following that up with link-ups with Last.fm, Facebook and Twitter, is adding content from ESPN (NYSE: DIS) to its online gaming service. ESPN and Microsoft say Xbox 360 owners who are also Xbox Live…

ESPN (NYSE: DIS), which has already notched more than six million downloads for its free ScoreCenter app, continues to expand its digital presence on devices with six new mobile apps announced at today’s upfront. Five are actually localized versions of the same one, a free ESPN Local app that will…

FreeWheel has added $16.8 million in strategic funding from several top investors. The online video monetization startup says its fourth round of funding is coming from Walt Disney’s Steamboat Ventures, as well as existing backers Turner Broadcasting System, Battery Ventures and Foundation Capital (It’s the first time that FreeWheel has…

With the 2010 baseball season just underway, ESPN (NYSE: DIS) is expanding the number of individual teams covered on SweetSpot, the baseball blog network it started last October. SweetSpot launched with eight teams during the 2009 playoff season and the ESPN has now added another 11 sites, which are run…

First it ate in to Sky’s Premier League lockdown by winning a chunk of live linear rights. Now it’s taken from Sky the mobile highlights rights to all 380 of England’s top-tier soccer matches, beginning from the 2010/11 season’s start, this coming August. ESPN (NYSE: DIS), as a content maker,…

ESPN3.com debuts Sunday night with the Yankees-Red Sox season opener and lots of enhancements but whatever the name it’s still available in the U.S. primarily to the 50 million or so subscribers whose ISPs have a licensing deal with ESPN (NYSE: DIS). That’s because unlike 99.9 percent of broadband sites,…

ESPN (NYSE: DIS) is following a number of industry efforts to improve audience measurement that began last year with its own collective research effort. The Disney sports franchise is starting ESPN XP to study consumer behavior around major sporting events beginning with the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa this…

One of the favorite sports of most media conferences these days involves trotting out Wired editor Chris Anderson’s “freemium” idea—which is predicated on balancing free online and paid premium content—and kicking it to the ground. The topic served as a introduction to discussing the problems associated with paywalls and display…

It’s no secret that Disney (NYSE: DIS) would like to get another crack at the Olympics and plans to bid for rights to the 2014 and 2016 games.The last time ABC had rights to the Olympics was 1988—before e-mail was ubiquitous, broadband was even a possibility and ESPN was a…

Fox and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) narrowly averted retrans Armageddon on New Years Eve. Will Disney (NYSE: DIS) and ABC manage the same feat during the search for retransmission fees for the network and its affiliates? “We’re pretty resolute,” CEO Bob Iger told analysts during the Disney FYQ1 call, serving…

At the tres civilized Pierre in Manhattan this morning where the 8th Annual Media Dealmakers Summit kicked off with Disney’s Kevin Mayer. A lot of talk about the recent Marvel (NYSE: DIS) acquisition, a very big bet by Disney, but inevitably the question of Hulu and pay models came up.…

ESPN (NYSE: DIS) has acquired Vistas Unlimited, Inc., which will help it go even more virtual on both the programming and advertising fronts. The Plano, Texas-based technology proffers virtual insertion technology that can be used to overlay advertising or graphics into live coverage of sports, notably baseball, golf, basketball, hockey…

Microsoft’s Xbox Live internet service, which recently lost one of its trump cards when rivals Sony (NYSE: SNE) and Nintendo matched its partnership with Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX), may soon fire back with a new content deal of its own. Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) “has held in-depth discussions” with Walt Disney Co.…

With the television industry buzzing over the possibilities of bringing 3D HD pictures to the living room as it heads to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, cable sports giant ESPN (NYSE: DIS) has gotten a jump on the field by announcing that it will launch a…