Disney+ Disney+ Streaming Service (Official Thread) (2 Viewers)

[TravisR]

This also put Warner on notice for pricing. I don’t see how Warner can now come out with a significant higher price, even if they have more content to offer. I’d gladly pay each major studio $7 per month (Warner, Paramount, Universal) for access to their catalog.

I think Disney is fairly unique in that they have enough content that they can get people to pay for access to it and the problem for other studios is that they can't appeal to a broad enough consumer base to do the same thing that Disney is going to do. Warners, for example, could appeal to movie fans by having access to a ton of their older movies but that would be less than meaningless to most people. And would the average person pay $12 a month to just to be able to see Harry Potter and the DC movies? Some would but I don't think it would be anywhere near the level that Disney is going to get.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I think Warner would probably fall into that category of "subscribe temporarily but not permanently" that many services fall in. They have a lot of content, but it doesn't have the same depth of universally appealing, timeless and culturally relevant material that Disney has.

However, some sort of bundle where AT&T pulls together the Warner library along with the premium HBO content into a single offering, that could have some potential.

But I don't think anyone will be able to offer what Disney can. They've done a hell of a job over decades of conditioning to keep their "vault" titles culturally valuable despite content becoming more disposable over the years. They've created an entire environment where an eighty year old movie like "Snow White" is considered valuable and important by the culture at large in a way that just isn't seen with anyone else's content. Warner controls "Gone with the Wind" and it's a culturally significant film, they control "Citizen Kane" which is still recognized as being one of the best ever, but Disney is on a whole other level with making each of their movies important in the present. Simply put, maybe most ten year olds have heard of "Gone with the Wind," but every ten year old has actually watched old Disney movies in a way they don't with other content from other studios.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I think that's a smart move. I'm sure some will disagree, but I don't think they're going to lose a single subscriber because of the window.

The window will ensure that some people buy the disc to get it immediately and also keep their Disney+ subscription thanks to all the other things that they have. I fully expect to buy the disc of Frozen II. If they didn't have the window, it would be a death blow to their physical home entertainment business (which it might well still be, but protecting the window ensures they'll get at least some sales.)

 

[holtge]

Agreed. I can't imagine any scenario during at least the first year of Disney+ being available that the company won't want to "have their cake and eat it too." Both of these platforms offer the opportunity for profit. Why wouldn't they want to preserve one profit stream at the expense of the other?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The window will ensure that some people buy the disc to get it immediately

More likely, the window will ensure that some people make immediate digital purchases through services like iTunes. We've seen a 50% drop in sales of physical media over the past five years; that's only going to get more extreme as time goes by. Within the next five years, as much as I hate to say it, I don't think physical media will be looked at as the go-to sales format for anything. I'm not predicting that all disc production will be over by that time, but Disney and all other studios have already been prioritizing digital sales over disc sales and giving release date preference to the digital versions. That's only going to continue. My point being, I don't think Disney is counting on disc sales long term.

Even digital sales aren't what studios had expected or hoped for.

Consumers have spoken, by and large, that they prefer the convenience and wide variety that subscription services offer. At this point in time (and this will only be more true as time goes on), the vast majority of customers aren't choosing between buying a physical disc or having a subscription; they're deciding between whether to bootleg the content, share a password with someone else who pays for a service, or signing up for the service themselves.

At $7 a month or $70 a year, Disney is trying to make it easier and cheaper and more convenient to just pay them instead of trying to illegally download something or work out a password sharing arrangement with someone else.

I think Disney will be happy to take your money for individual sales, especially while the service is still being rolled out, but I think the landscape will be so completely different in five years that Disney is already going to be prepared and have direct relationships with their consumer base when that line is crossed where spending on individual titles in general completely falls off a cliff.

Individual movie purchases, whether in a physical or digital format, are falling out of favor with average customers in the same way that individual album sales have fallen out of favor with people.

 

[Jake Lipson]

More likely, the window will ensure that some people make immediate digital purchases through services like iTunes.

Sure. Whether it's an immediate digital purchase or a disc purchase, Disney still protects that revenue stream by allowing the content a window for that.

If Disney were to put Frozen II on Disney+ day-and-date with its home release for individual sale, the people who go to iTunes to buy the stream would most likely not do that because they can already stream it with their Disney+ subscription. By windowing it, they'll essentially get paid for that twice -- the direct digital sale and they'll keep getting paid for Disney+.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Yes, agreed.

But what I'm saying is, long term, individual purchases of titles like Frozen II (and anything and everything else) will continue to decline. Disney is expecting to lose about a billion dollars a year on Disney+ for each of the first five years that the service will be in operation. But buy the time that's done, and as the service starts coming into its own and turning a profit, I think the landscape will be so changed that individual purchases of movie titles will represent such a small portion of the business that they'll be irrelevant to Disney.

At a certain point, it may be more valuable to Disney to have something available on Disney+ first, and then available for individual purchase later for the few holdouts who won't join a subscription service. I'm thinking we'll see the digital equivalent of Beyonce releasing an album exclusively on a streaming service and only months or years later making it available in physical formats and on other platforms. At a certain point, having things appearing first on Disney+ will make the Disney+ brand more valuable, and that that value will be worth more to Disney overall than a few extra digital sales would have been.

Customers today are already strongly indicating their preference to subscribe rather than buy. That preference is only going to grow stronger as time passes.

 

[DaveF]

For me, there's very little on Netflix in terms of original content that actually interests me. I would be able to get by pretty easily by subscribing for a month here and there to watch a specific thing and then letting the subscription lapse. But my wife finds a lot of value in their offering. [...]

I think what's unique about the Disney+ offering is that they're pricing it so low and offering so much content, with the promise of that content not disappearing, that I think they'll be able to attract more subscribers over the long term than the other services. Disney has always had a unique relationship with customers and home video compared to every other studio, and they should be perfectly positioned to exploit that with Disney+. For what they're offering, and for how little they're charging for it, the convenience factor will be so high that it's going to be a no-brainer for a lot of people to set it and forget it.

[...]

The low price of Disney+ makes it much more likely I'll subscribe. I may be wrong, but offhand there's nothing I especially want from a Disney service. Netflix has so much amazing original content that I'm into that I'll keep paying $14/mo as long as they keep it up. And I get Amazon Prime for "free" with my free-shipping service, so that's not going away. Disney? Given the choice to re-watch MCU movies or watch new episodes of Stranger Things or Westworld, Disney movies lose out for me.

And if Disney were coming in with Netflix pricing...well, that would be the reason I don't subscribe to CBS. Not enough content for me to add another $10+/ mo service

But $70/year? $6/mo? That's like three blu-rays. I signed up for Hulu at the $1/mo special to watch Handmaid's Tale ... and haven't gotten to it yet but have found other content I didn't know about. So Disney at coffee-a-month pricing: I'll probably subscribe just to have it for if and when I want to watch a movie, whether on a lazy Sunday afternoon or as part of having a movie party with friends. And consider it money well spent even if I only watch three movies a year. And if I love it, then all the better.

Where it gets interesting is in Year 2 or 3 of Disney+ when they raise the rates to match Netflix at $14/mo.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

My feeling is that, at least for the foreseeable future, Disney will be making an effort to keep the pricing low - I think they're trying to play a long game where they're getting more people to subscribe at a lower price, but keep their subscriptions active year-round, than trying to get fewer people to subscribe at a higher price.

 

[DaveF]

It could well be. Coming in at half of Netflix Andy owning everyone’s childhood is a big move against all the streaming services. They could keep it up for a few years to build and lock in a subscriber base, before really raising rates.

 

[DaveF]

What I’m unclear about is the relationship between Disney+ and Hulu and the more adult oriented Fox and say Miramax material.

I take it that Disney+ isn’t an complete library of all things “Disney”. To get the full library you’d have to subscribe to additional services?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

What I’m unclear about is the relationship between Disney+ and Hulu and the more adult oriented Fox and say Miramax material.

I take it that Disney+ isn’t an complete library of all things “Disney”. To get the full library you’d have to subscribe to additional services?

If I'm reading everything right, it looks like the more adult stuff that couldn't be folded into Disney+ will be on Hulu.

With Disney's purchase of Fox, Disney now owns the majority of Hulu instead of just a third of it.

What I believe they're saying is that all of the non-Disney material that wouldn't be appropriate on Disney+ (like FX's "Legion" or Fox's R rated movies, etc.) will be on Hulu, which is probably going to be revamped at some point.

I believe they're saying that there will be a bundle that subscribers can choose to subscribe to that will include both Disney+ and Hulu, and that there will be some kind of savings to be had if you subscribe to both. So probably more than $7 a month, but I'm guessing still at some very reasonable, very attractive rate.

 

[holtge]

Yes, I read somewhere this week that AT&T sold its 10% stake in Hulu to Disney in order to pay down some outstanding debt. Can't remember exactly where I read that news, but it's given Disney 70% ownership in the streaming service.

Found it:

www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/206FD294-5FF0-11E9-95B5-94067A85380F&ved=2ahUKEwj0vNOvk-LhAhVHi1QKHcg5BRkQFjABegQIDRAF&usg=AOvVaw0GB60bxwohCSxFzrSryr3a&ampcf=1

 

[holtge]

Yes, I read somewhere this week that AT&T sold its 10% stake in Hulu to Disney in order to pay down some outstanding debt. Can't remember exactly where I read that news, but it's given Disney 70% ownership in the streaming service.

Found it:

www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/206FD294-5FF0-11E9-95B5-94067A85380F&ved=2ahUKEwj0vNOvk-LhAhVHi1QKHcg5BRkQFjABegQIDRAF&usg=AOvVaw0GB60bxwohCSxFzrSryr3a&ampcf=1

Actually, it appears that I may have been incorrect. AT&T sold its 10% stake directly back to Hulu, meaning it will be divided between Comcast and Disney. But where the Mouse House currently controls 60%, they will probably end up owning two-thirds of the company.

https://www.fool.com/amp/investing/2019/04/16/disney-inches-closer-to-owning-hulu.aspx

 

[Cranston37+]

Yes, I read somewhere this week that AT&T sold its 10% stake in Hulu to Disney in order to pay down some outstanding debt. Can't remember exactly where I read that news

You read it a couple pages back in this thread

The info in that article gives Disney 67% so who know what number is accurate...

 

[Jeff Adkins]

I've compiled a list of every title shown during the Disney Plus Announcement Presentation. Note: This list is by no means a complete list of what will be available. This is only 148 titles of the 500+ that will be available by the end of year one (400+ at launch). I'm only listing these as they give kind of a general overview of what's going to be offered on the service.

Each list is sorted chronologically, by year of initial release. In some cases, I have listed the year as to avoid confusion with other films that have the same or similar names. In a few cases, I have also indicated "Live Action" where both animated and live-action versions exist.


Disney Animated Vault Films Available At Launch
Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Pinocchio (1940)
Bambi (1942)
Cinderella (1950)
Peter Pan (1953)
Lady And The Tramp (1955)
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
101 Dalmatians (1961)
The Jungle Book (1967)
The Little Mermaid (1989)
Beauty And The Beast (1991)
Aladdin (1992)
The Lion King (1994)


Disney Animated Films (Non-Vault) Available At Launch
Fantasia (1940)
Dumbo (1941)
Alice In Wonderland (1951)
The Sword In The Stone (1963)
The Aristocats (1970)
The Fox And The Hound (1981)
The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
Pocahontas
The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1996)
Hercules (1997)
Mulan
Dinosaur (2000)
Fantasia 2000
The Emperor's New Groove (2000)
Lilo & Stitch
Chicken Little
Meet The Robinsons (2007)
Bolt
The Princess And The Frog
Tangled (2010)
Winnie The Pooh (2011)
Wreck-It Ralph (2012)
Frozen (2013)
Big Hero 6
Moana (2016)
Zootopia (2016)

Disney Animated Films (Non-Vault) To Be Added In Year One
Frozen II

 

[Jeff Adkins]

Walt Disney Pictures Films Available At Launch
Treasure Island
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
Old Yeller
Parent Trap, The (1961)
Mary Poppins
Bedknobs & Broomsticks
Pete's Dragon (1977)
Tron (1982)
Honey, I Shrunk The Kids
Rocketeer, The
Newsies
Hocus Pocus
Santa Clause, The (1994)
101 Dalmatians (Live Action) (1996)
Parent Trap, The (1998)
102 Dalmatians (2000)
Remember The Titans
Princess Diaries, The
Santa Clause 2
Freaky Friday (2003)
Haunted Mansion, The (2003)
Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl
Miracle
National Treasure
Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Santa Clause 3
National Treasure 2: Book Of Secrets
Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End
Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Alice In Wonderland (Live Action) (2010)
Secretariat
Tron: Legacy
Muppets, The (2011)
Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Saving Mr. Banks
Dumbo (Live Action) (2019)

Walt Disney Pictures Films To Be Added In Year One
Mighty Ducks, The
Enchanted
Maleficent
Muppets Most Wanted
Cinderella (Live Action) (2015)
Alice Through The Looking Glass (2016)
Beauty And The Beast (Live Action) (2017)
Christopher Robin (2018)
Aladdin (Live Action) (2019)
The Lion King (Remake) (2019)

 

[Jeff Adkins]

Pixar Films To Be Available At Launch
Toy Story
A Bug's Life
Toy Story 2
Monsters, Inc.
Finding Nemo
Incredibles, The
Cars
Ratatouille
WALL-E
Up
Toy Story 3
Cars 2
Brave
Monsters University
Good Dinosaur, The
Inside Out
Finding Dory
Cars 3

Pixar Films To Be Added In Year One
Coco
Incredibles 2
Toy Story 4

 

[Jeff Adkins]

Star Wars Films To Be Available At Launch
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Star Wars Films To Be Added In Year One
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Star Wars Episode IX

 

[Jeff Adkins]

Marvel Films To Be Available At Launch
Iron Man
Iron Man 3
Thor: The Dark World
Captain Marvel

Marvel Films To Be Added In Year One
Iron Man 2
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Guardians Of The Galaxy
Thor: Ragnarok
Ant-Man And The Wasp
Avengers: Infinity War
Black Panther
Avengers: Endgame