Disney Channels Worldwide’s Sean Cocchia

The company’s executive VP of business operations and general manager talks about serving media-savvy children via more than 100 channels and feeds around the world, which include Disney Channel, Disney XD, Disney Junior and their corresponding websites and WATCH apps.

ImageTV KIDS: What have you been learning about the way kids are watching programming today?
COCCHIA: When we aired High School Musical in January of 2006, YouTube had launched just some 12 months earlier, and it was the first time that we saw [our viewers] create their own content, share it and communicate about it in a different way. Fast-forward ten years and you see all the different ways that a kid can take a piece of content, own it, share it, talk about it and create his/her own version. This has absolutely changed the dynamic of [our business]. Descendants was our big tentpole movie last year. It was a combination of our storytelling plus the classic Disney characters that everyone grew up with. We knew that people were going to share it, we knew they would want to talk about it, we knew there were different ways they wanted to experience it, so we built Descendants from the ground up assuming that its content would play on all platforms. We launched the movie. We launched short-form content for YouTube and on social media. We had Twitter parties during the premiere and ongoing conversations about the stories and characters across our digital/social platforms and Radio Disney. We connect with the audience in every possible way that we can.

As for the ways kids are viewing, there is an 80 percent chance that a preschooler today has access to some kind of mobile device, which means he/she has the ability to take content with them when they are away from the TV screen, for example, in the car or the grocery store. So for preschoolers we have built platforms from games, “appisodes” and our WATCH apps to allow them to take content with them. As they get older, kids are beginning to experiment on social media and share content. We look at that audience and try to figure out how they want to experience content. It’s not just watching, it’s touching it, communicating it and embracing all the different ways that they can connect to it.

TV KIDS: Are these new viewing habits changing the ways you produce programming?
COCCHIA: Yes. We have two live-action shows coming out this year. Bizaardvark, on Disney Channel, focuses on two girls who have become internet stars through the music videos they create. We are crafting those story lines at the same time as we are crafting other elements: music videos, short-form content, other pieces of content that will live alongside the 22-minute episodes. We look at the DNA of a show and ask what opportunities do we have to create content for other platforms that feels organic and natural to what that show is.

Another show is Walk the Prank on Disney XD, which is a combination of narrative storytelling and a reality prank show. We have been looking at how we can create Vines, YouTube videos and other short-form content that will help support and extend the story, as well as be an organic extension of who the characters are. Ten years ago in the High School Musical days we wouldn’t have been looking at those platforms. Now it’s part of the conversation when we greenlight content.

TV KIDS: How are you premiering shows today—on the linear channels or do you experiment online first?
COCCHIA: We’ve done a lot of different experiments and now every time a piece of content premieres on our linear networks, that same day it will also premiere on our WATCH apps, on the on-demand platforms of our cable operators, as well as any other owned platforms. Our content is available when and how a consumer wants it, we don’t necessarily look at separate windows for each one of these platforms, so we have changed how we are premiering content. Sheriff Callie’s West Wild on Disney Junior, for example, premiered on our WATCH app almost six months ahead of linear. We do a lot of research with consumers to learn how they are experiencing content. They have devices and the ability to take the content with them. We want to make it easy so that they always have the opportunity to experience Disney content.

TV KIDS: So, it doesn’t really matter where they are watching as long as they are watching?
COCCHIA: At Disney Channels Worldwide, one of the most important things is making sure our content resonates and connects to consumers, because when it does, that love for that program shows up in many different ways, from consumer products, to user-generated content to social media conversation. So getting a consumer to watch Descendants last summer on the WATCH app, a week before it went on the linear channel, was just as important as having them watch the premiere on TV.

TV KIDS: Are you finding content from local Disney Channels around the world that you can roll out globally?
COCCHIA: There are a couple of examples of that. Last year Disney Channel Japan launched a series of animated shorts based on gaming characters called Tsum Tsum. They are very stylized versions of Disney characters. When we saw the shorts, we immediately pushed them through the system so that every Disney Channel around the world, including in the U.S., was airing them. We also aired them on our digital platforms and they did incredibly well. It was created and completely produced by the Japanese team. We also have a program called Violetta. It was a telenovela co-produced by Disney Channel Latin America and Disney Channel Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) that dominated the tween landscape in both of those regions. In Europe, this spring we are premiering a theatrical movie based on the lead character played by Martina Stoessel. Violetta was content that had legs beyond just Latin America or Europe; it went pretty much everywhere. We are also looking at their next telenovela story, Soy Luna, which we launched in Latin America, to figure out what the opportunities are for it in the U.S.

Europe also did their first live-action series, called Evermoor. As the international channels are growing, they are all beginning to experiment more with local programming in some of the areas that they are strong in: for Latin America it’s telenovelas, Britain is very good in the live-action space. We are working on some content now in Asia given their strength in anime. You will continue to see The Walt Disney Company invest in content that resonates on the local level and then hopefully has the wings to go global.

TV KIDS: How is music content becoming more important to Disney Channel?
COCCHIA: Radio Disney launched in 1996 as a classic station you would listen to in your car—that was 20 years ago. It was a very passive experience of listening to whatever music was playing. Fast-forward to today, we have moved from being a terrestrial radio station for your car to a completely digital-focused service. Even more exciting are some of the digital extensions that we’ve been able to do: Radio Disney Country and Radio Disney Junior. We have been able to create very specific and targeted networks for more demos. Technology has allowed us to elevate music across our platforms and across our businesses. The tentpole is the Radio Disney Music Awards, which airs on Disney Channel, but when we launched the first one four years ago, we built it to be a digital-focused type of content, from how viewers vote to the nomination specials to how it premieres to short-form to social media to the classic show. We are looking at it as a way to connect digital music and the Disney brand to our audience in the most aggressive way.

TV KIDS: If creating strong brands was important ten years ago, how much more important is it today?
COCCHIA: I think the High School Musical experience can absolutely be replicated again. We did it last summer with Descendants and Disney Channel is incredibly lucky to be part of a company that not only creates its own IP, but we also [have available IP from The Walt Disney Company]. We have Star Wars, and we have Star Wars Rebels and our platform right now is the only platform in the world that airs television content tied to the Star Wars brand. We have the Marvel content and the Disney-Pixar content. Just last year we premiered The Lion Guard, which is a preschool series based on the beloved movie The Lion King. As I look at the future and at the company’s tentpoles, we have a treasure trove of content with the amount of IP and characters that parents remember, kids remember and that we can keep re-introducing to them. For us, tentpole programming is incredibly important in a very crowded environment and we are very blessed that we have a lot to choose from and a lot to create.