Disney is looking at more ways to tap...

studying “other forms of storytelling,” including interactive, he said. Results in Disney’s Interactive segment were “significantly better than we anticipated” when the company reported Q1 results, said Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo. Interactive revenue for Q2 increased 38 percent to $268 million from the year-ago quarter, and operating results for the segment swung to a profit of $14 million from a loss of $54 million, driven by the strength of Infinity, which launched in Q4. Iger said in Q&A the company is looking for growth from consumption of new media platforms, including short- and long-form entertainment. Iger cited the recently launched Disney Movies Anywhere app that allows users to buy and play new Disney movies within an iTunes app or to stream content purchased via iTunes without downloading it again on a mobile device. Disney plans to grow the consumption of media on mobile platforms including smartphones and tablets. Commenting on Disney’s recent distribution agreement with Dish Network, Iger said “the bet that’s being made” is that the offering for ABC, ESPN and Disney content has the potential to “attract people who may not have already signed up for multichannel service” and get them to “sign up for something instead of nothing.” He called the offering “complementary to the pay-TV model,” comparing it to Disney’s Watch apps. Iger said it’s Dish’s responsibility to “get critical mass from a program perspective” for the service to take off. “We don’t intend to participate in that pursuit at all,” he said. He called the initiative a “smart thing to do” and “something that we should certainly try.” On whether the Dish deal is critical to business, he said, “No, but it’s certainly critical that it gets critical mass from a programmer’s perspective in order to bring it to market.” Disney is open to working out similar deals with other distribution partners “but we have not engaged in any of those discussions yet,” he said.