Chrystia Freeland, FT US Managing Editor, and Matthew Garrahan, Los Angeles Correspondent, interviewed Robert A. Iger, President and CEO of Walt Disney, in LA on January 30.

This is an edited transcript of the interview.

FT: Thank you very much for joining us, Mr. Iger.

Iger: Pleasure.

FT: One of your hallmarks as CEO has been a real focus on digital distribution. To what extent do you see the digital revolution as an opportunity for Disney and companies like it? And to what extent is it a threat?

Iger: The technology is just a means for the consumer to access content that is made, or to communicate with other people, or to socialise in some form with others.

For a company like Disney, what it provides is many, many more opportunities to serve our consumers better. So, what we've been doing is recognising this great opportunity and taking full advantage of it, but in many respects it's just the tip of the iceberg.

What we will see in the future, I believe will provide this company with more opportunities than we could ever have imagined in terms of reaching more and more people more often with our great branded content.

FT: One of the centrepieces of that strategy has been your decision to make Disney content available on iTunes. Other people have been a lot more wary of that. Why are you so confident that that can work for Disney?

Iger: Well you start by recognising the fact that there are millions of people around the world who are using this platform to consume media, and you quickly conclude that it's a relevant platform to the consumer, and it's a place we ought to be. So it seemed like a no-brainer to us.

FT: One of the concerns which was raised at the time, and which some of your competitors still worry about, is the concerns of the retailers of your more traditional means of distributing your content in DVDs. Do you think that some of those big retailers like Wal-Mart and Target, have become accustomed to what you are doing? Are there things you have done to assuage their fears?

Iger: Well, for decades in the media business, when a new platform emerges, the old platform feels threatened and tension is created. A good example would be what happened when television came of age in the fifties, and movie companies like Walt Disney decided to put its content, its movies and its television shows, on television. And there was some backlash among the movie-theatre owners, worried that their product would be threatened. And that's happened through the ages in our business.

The new platform doesn't emerge simply because someone creates the technology, the new platform typically emerges because the technology is embraced by the consumer, and the consumer is using that technology more and more in the media space to consume media.

So, if the motion picture companies decided they were going to ignore TV, and not make content for it, or put the content that they created for the movie-theatres on, someone else would have emerged to fill that space, interestingly enough. And the same thing is true today.

If we don't put our content on these new platforms, which the consumer has obviously embraced, the endorsement is there from the consumer, other entities will create content and fill that void. In the end, the respect that we have to have needs to be for our consumer, and I believe by doing so, that's how we will continue as a company to create shareholder value.

FT: As you manage that very delicate shift, do you ever worry about cannibalisation?

Iger: The messaging is that we believe the pie is getting bigger, and this is not necessarily going to cannibalise your business, and we've seen some interesting examples of that.

Pirates of the Carribbean and Cars were two of the most downloaded films on iTunes when we launched movies there in October, yet those two movies did extremely well in their sell-through DVD business, and mass retail. Extremely well, and in fact, exceeded our expectations in both cases, and yet they were the most downloaded movies on this new platform.

FT: And are examples like that calming down the concerns of the traditional partners? Are they aware of this and do they say, "Well, maybe it's not the threat that we thought it was to begin with"?

Iger: It varies. There are those that I think are accepting of the reality, but a little bit concerned about it; and there are others who accept the reality, meaning that there is greater consumption on new platforms, but believe that it's not necessarily harmful, in some cases it might actually be good.

It's interesting, because a lot of the same consumer electronic devices that are being used by the consumer to consume our product on these new platforms are being sold by mass retailers. So their business is actually growing in some respects because they are selling the very goods that are being used to consume the things that we make.

I think there are many mass retailers that view this not necessarily negatively, but in some cases positively.

FT: One of the things you've talked about is the need to also create new forms of content for the new media. One of the very popular forms right now is user-generated content, and that's something which I think you're exploring with Disney.com.

Iger: First of all, let me comment a bit on user-generated content, which I find interesting, because back in the late eighties, 1989, an executive who worked for me at ABC, when I was running ABC's primetime business, came to me with a tape of a programme in Japan that featured home-videos, or user-generated content, and it became America's Funniest Home Videos. That was 1989, this is 2007 – the programme is still on. So that says something: that people in fact are fascinated by this, and YouTube's success, and their eventual sale to Google, is certainly a current and living breathing example of just that.

I always think there'll be a balance in the sense that I don't think it's necessarily a threat to traditionally-created content at all. It's not going to take over the world; it'll just be another component of people's media consumption. I'm only sorry that we didn't get there first online before YouTube, having put it on ABC, knowing how successful it was, that we didn't think about it as a potential web product.

FT: One of the signal moves that you've made as CEO is partnership with Steve Jobs. I wonder if you could talk about what influence that's had on your own thinking, and what influence he's having on Disney and its direction.

Iger: Well, when we purchased Pixar (NASDAQ:PIXR), Steve converted his Pixar holdings to Disney holdings and he became our largest shareholder, and joined the board this past spring, which has been a great step for the company on a number of levels. Having Steve not just as a board member and a shareholder, but as an advisor is something that I have benefited from and a number of people at the Walt Disney Company have benefited from.

He has a great perspective and great experience and running ideas past him at times, showing him content. Yesterday we showed the board, of which Steve is a member, our new Disney.com site, first time they had seen it, and the feedback he gave to the people who were running that venture was quite valuable.

FT: Anything specific that he said, that a person who wasn't Steve Jobs wouldn't think of?

Iger: He liked it; first of all, that's a good thing. And I won't get into too many details, except that he gave it a ringing endorsement. And that's great for us.

We also have developed a good relationship through Steve with Apple that resulted in us launching a television product over a year ago, and a movie product this past October. That's been very successful: we had over 1.3m of our movies downloaded between October and January, and close to 20m of our TV shows in just over a year.

So that's been immensely successful, and it's great to have him aboard, and I think it'll bear fruit for the shareholders of the Walt Disney Company in numerous ways.

FT: International expansion is something that you've emphasised as CEO, and one interesting aspect of that has been a focus on locally-produced content. I wonder if you could talk about the ways in which, in a globalised world, in a global economy, locally-produced content is important for an iconic company like Disney.

Iger: First of all, global growth is imperative for us. We are not only a very durable brand world-wide, but we are a very well known brand, so I think we have the ability to not just succeed but to grow and to thrive in many markets around the country for years to come. But in order to do so, it's not just about putting our product there, meaning taking something that's been made for another market and putting a local language track on it, and distributing it locally. It's about being locally relevant, and that means operating locally, meaning moving our people to markets so that they understand the markets, the culture, the interests. It's also about being creative locally: there's a lot of talent and a lot of creativity in many, many places around the world, and we have to tap into that content, and we're doing so in numerous ways.

We're shooting a Disney film in China for distribution primarily in China called The Magic Gourd; we're developing films that are Disney branded for the first time in India; we've either remade products in Latin America: Desperate Housewives is being remade in Portuguese and in Spanish in Latin America. Again, not something that we're just bringing down and putting a Spanish language track on, but it has local actors, and it's tailored to local interest and local taste.

There's a lot of activity around the company to generate content locally but with the Disney name on it. And I think it's imperative for us to do that in order for us to really penetrate these markets deeply and to be as durable in those markets as we need to be.

Because you're also seeing in both the developed and the developing world, a lot of growth in local creativit. Again, technology's impact on our business is enabling local creators to not just create, but to reach more people locally. And in order for us to compete with locally-embedded creative businesses, we have to create locally.

FT: Do you ever worry that at a time when there's quite a lot of international hostility to America, that that hostility could hurt Disney as a company, and is this localisation strategy maybe a way of avoiding that?

Iger: Fortunately, for Disney, even though we were an American-born company, Walt Disney was a worldly man; he was a man who was voracious in terms of his interest in the world and his curiosity. And that led him to take Disney to the world many, many years ago. He brought Snow White to China in the early thirties.

So while there's no question that Disney is a company that is based in the United States, and, as I said earlier, was born in the United States, we've had a presence in many markets around the world for so long, and our stories and our characters and our values seem to many people around the world to be so universal in their appeal, that we are not viewed by people around the world as just an American company: we're viewed as an entertainment company.

And that's a huge advantage for us, and in many respects it's thanks to Walt, but it's something that we have to be ever mindful of. In order for us to grow around the world, we have to continue to basically show a side of our company to the world that is universal in appeal of course, but locally relevant as well. It all ties together.

FT: And where in the world do you see the greatest growth opportunities?

Iger: You're seeing great growth in media consumption in markets like England and Japan, and you're seeing it in markets like Russia; India; China; areas of Latin America. So wherever that growth exists, whether it's more movie-theatres being built; more multi-platform television; services being created; more mass retailers; more internet platforms, there are opportunities for us.

FT: Some management writers have recently been commenting on the emergence of a new style of management in America, of maybe the rise of the consensual CEO, and talked about people like you and Jeff Immelt embodying that approach. Would you say that's a good characterisation of your approach to Disney?

Iger: I firmly believe in choosing great people to help run this company and it's large and diverse set of businesses. It can't be about one person. I have to be a collaborator not a dictator, when it comes to running this company, even though a CEO has a certain set of responsibilities, and accountability himself to shareholders and to the board.

It's important to really find great people, and to enable them. And that's what I've tried to do.

FT: Disney had gone through a fairly difficult period just before you became CEO. Do you think this approach has helped to restore morale?

Iger: Nothing restores morale better than great performance, whether it's to the bottom line, or whether it's to your shareholders, meaning the price of your stock, that goes a long way. But we're a great company, we're a company that's one of the most admired companies in the world, it's important that the people who work for us admire us the most, I believe. Because in order to be admired by our consumers, it's imperative that we are admired by the people who make this company what it is.

I think the last year and a half or so, we've done a good job as a company at creating a lot of admiration among the people who work for us, for a variety of reasons. First and foremost would be the quality of our creative output, and its success, and just our general performance.

We've had a great run, just about any way you measure it.

FT: Thank you very much.

Iger: Thank you.

And now the prediction:

I predict that the internet-enabled computer media experience will be the primary media experience for our children's generation as they grow up.

Robert A Iger: Biographial details

Director since 2000

Robert A. Iger, 55, has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the company since October 2005, having previously served as President and Chief Operating Officer since January 2000 and as President of Walt Disney International and Chairman of the ABC Group from 1999 to January 2000.

From 1974 to 1998, Mr. Iger held a series of increasingly responsible positions at ABC and its predecessor Capital Cities/ABC, culminating in service as President of the ABC Network Television Group from 1993 to 1994 and President and Chief Operating Officer of ABC from 1994 to 1999. He is a member of the board of directors of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York.