Jobs once actively persuaded Disney to promote online video sales to boost iTunes film and television sales

On April 21, Apple Insider reported that a book about the streaming industry stated that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs directly influenced former Disney CEO Bob Iger to accept online video sales and helped launch iTunes movie and TV sales.

Apple and Disney have had a close relationship for years, with Jobs using his position to convince Disney to work with the iPhone maker. In an excerpt from Dade Hayes and Dawn Chmielewski's book, The Binge Age: Hollywood's Fierce Billion-Dollar Battle to Take Down Netflix, Jobs did everything he could to get Disney on his side.

The excerpt, published by Inc, describes a 2005 Jobs meeting when Disney was trying to address piracy. Anne Sweeney, former president of Disney-ABC, recounts how news of the season finale of Desperate Housewives, which has 30 million viewers, was pirated minutes after it aired.

A few months later, Jobs said he had found a solution to the piracy problem and flew to Burbank to demonstrate the video iPod. Bob Iger arranged a phone call with Jobs, who made the proposal, "I want to show you what we're doing."

At the meeting, Jobs opened a notebook and showed off a version of the iTunes store, including a large image of Lost, the ABC TV series. Jobs then talked with Anne Sweeney by downloading the show onto his notebook, then handed over an iPod playing clips of the show.

"It didn't occur to me until he left. I thought, wait a minute, how did he get an episode of 'Lost'? " Anne Sweeney said, then it occurred to me that he might have downloaded it beforehand.

After the deal was struck, Disney secretly flew master tapes of popular shows to Apple headquarters on company planes, with engineering executives personally delivering brown paper packages to a locked room. The deal remained quiet until October 2005, when Apple confirmed it would sell downloads of the shows through its iTunes store.

The impact on Disney and ABC is significant, with broadcast affiliates unhappy with the new announcement. Advertisers also called to say they "want to be part of whatever we do next," Sweeney added.

The deal helped repair the relationship between Disney and Jobs that had been broken under Michael Eisner, and Jobs' focus on branding and quality was said to have influenced Disney's work across the business. Bob Iger also reportedly adopted a more technology-focused approach for the company, which led to a wider acceptance of advanced technology when he became CEO.