Walt Disney CEO: View Netflix As A Compliment To Traditional Television, Not A Disrupter Or Replacement

Although Walt Disney Co DIS reported worse than expected second-quarter numbers on Tuesday, the company's ties with streaming giant Netflix, Inc. NFLX seems to be strengthening quarter after quarter.

Robert Iger, Walt Disney Company CEO, was on CNBC Wednesday to discuss how Netflix is not a competition for the company, but a partner.

Friend Not A Foe

"We view Netflix as friend not foe," Iger began. "There is no reason for us to beat Netflix, we actually are taking advantage of Netflix's great growth and I guess maybe you can argue we have helped Netflix's great growth. We are selling product to Netflix that is off network ABC and other networks. We are fortunate that we have product like How To Get Away With Murder for instance that Netflix really covets."

Opportunities To Expand Relationship

He continued, "We are also selling our movies to Netflix. The output deal for our movie studio kicks in at Netflix starting with our 2016 slate and Netflix has also come forward as an aggressive buyer of original programming and we have a great deal with them for Marvel television and I would imagine we have opportunities to expand our relationship with Netflix in terms of supplying original television."

View It As A Positive

"So, suddenly we have a huge customer out there that is willing to spend and is actually already spending billions of dollars on intellectual property that this company owns. We view that as a positive, not a negative. I also as I look at Netflix I view it as a compliment to what I call traditional television, not necessarily as just a disrupter of it or a replacement of it," Iger concluded.