Disney's Streaming Services: Disney+ (and Hulu, ESPN+, Star, & hotstar)

[Disney Irish]

He might have changed his mind on getting the whole Hulu with what’s going on, in terms of financial, at Disney.

Not likely as he was quoted saying this at the CM Town Hall last week:

“Nothing is forever, but I am very, very comfortable with each of the assets that we have”

Hulu is better long term for Disney than selling it. It gives Disney a huge subscriber base that allows it to complete with Netflix, Amazon, and other streaming services.

 

[Elijah Abrams]

I'd rather have Disney abort their Hulu takeover and sell their Fox assets, so they can have enough money to buy Candle Media and make Staggs and Meyer the new CEOs of Disney. (Basically Eisner/Wells 2.0; Moonbug and Hello Sunshine would be spun off.)

 

[Disney Irish]

I'd rather have Disney abort their Hulu takeover and sell their Fox assets, so they can have enough money to buy Candle Media and make Staggs and Meyer the new CEOs of Disney. (Basically Eisner/Wells 2.0; Moonbug and Hello Sunshine would be spun off.)

Not that Disney needs Candle Media, but its a rather small company only worth about $7B. Disney doesn't need to sell Hulu or Fox in order to buy it, if they wanted it. They have the cash on-hand to do, or given Disney's current market valuation of $168B they can do an all stock deal. But I don't see Iger doing that, make very little financial sense.

Also there is nothing preventing Staggs and/or Meyer from leaving Candle Media and coming back to Disney. If the board wants them to take over for Iger in 2024 they can make it happen. But I don't see that happening.

However with that said, there is no indication that Iger is going to sell the Hulu or Fox assets anyways. It would basically reverse everything that he did between 2017-2019 to get the 21st Century assets in the first place. Which would tarnish his legacy, so its not likely to happen.

 

[Jedijax719]

So, apparently, if your annual subscription to D+ renews before December 8 (tomorrow), you are grandfathered into the old price for non-ads service. I found that out today (our sub renewed yesterday woohoo).

 

[Disney Irish]

So, apparently, if your annual subscription to D+ renews before December 8 (tomorrow), you are grandfathered into the old price for non-ads service. I found that out today (our sub renewed yesterday woohoo).

Yep, the same was discussed on the last page.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Celebrate The Holidays With The New Short “The Simpsons Meet The Bocellis In ‘Feliz Navidad’” Launching Dec. 15, Exclusively On Disney+

Christmas is coming early this year for fans of “The Simpsons!” Today, Disney+ announced that the new short “The Simpsons meet the Bocellis in ‘Feliz Navidad’” will launch December 15 exclusively on the streaming service. In the upcoming short from “The Simpsons,” Homer surprises Marge with the...

dmedmedia.disney.com

 

[DCBaker]

Roku devices currently will not work with the new Disney+ ad tier -

| Disney+

help.disneyplus.com

 

[MisterPenguin]

Roku devices currently will not work with the new Disney+ ad tier -

View attachment 683924

| Disney+

help.disneyplus.com

That's.... not good.

 

[Phroobar]

Roku devices currently will not work with the new Disney+ ad tier -

View attachment 683924

| Disney+

help.disneyplus.com

Brilliant! Make the Ad-free version completely incompatible with any popular streaming box or smart tv you have so you have to use the more expensive subscription. Why can't Disney do anything right?

 

[Disney Irish]

Brilliant! Make the Ad-free version completely incompatible with any popular streaming box or smart tv you have so you have to use the more expensive subscription. Why can't Disney do anything right?

Roku is only one platform, and so far appears to be the only streaming platform that can't use the Ad free version. Its very likely due to Roku not wanting to pay any extra fees that Disney is charging for the Ad free version, or Roku trying to get a piece of the Ad fees Disney will be getting. This is very common.

Either way I suspect it'll be settled in the next couple weeks.

 

[doctornick]

Roku is only one platform, and so far appears to be the only streaming platform that can't use the Ad free version. Its very likely due to Roku not wanting to pay any extra fees that Disney is charging for the Ad free version, or Roku trying to get a piece of the Ad fees Disney will be getting. This is very common.

Either way I suspect it'll be settled in the next couple weeks.

That’s fair, but was this known/announced ahead of time? I’d be kinda annoyed if I relied on Roku to stream and switch to the ad plan only to find out it didn’t work after the fact.

 

[Disney Irish]

That’s fair, but was this known/announced ahead of time? I’d be kinda annoyed if I relied on Roku to stream and switch to the ad plan only to find out it didn’t work after the fact.

I have no idea if it was announced ahead of time as I don't use Roku.

But it appears to be what I suspected, an issue with ad revenue sharing:

Disney Plus Launches Ad-Supported Tier Sans Roku Support

Insiders say Disney is still trying to carve out a 'fair' revenue sharing deal with the No. 1 U.S. connected TV platform

www.nexttv.com

 

[MisterPenguin]

Ad-Supported Disney+ Plan Now Available In The U.S. With More Than 100 Advertisers Across All Major Categories At Launch - The Walt Disney Company

BURBANK, Calif. (December 8, 2022) – Today, Disney+ made its highly-anticipated, ad-supported subscription offering available in the U.S., with more than 100 advertisers across …Read More

thewaltdisneycompany.com

 

[MisterPenguin]

Feel the Churn: What Subscriber Cancellations Mean for Streamers

New VIP+ Analysis: U.S. SVOD churn reached record highs in Q3 ‘22, but those ratcheted rates may simply be a new fact of life.

variety.com

 

[_caleb]

Feel the Churn: What Subscriber Cancellations Mean for Streamers

New VIP+ Analysis: U.S. SVOD churn reached record highs in Q3 ‘22, but those ratcheted rates may simply be a new fact of life.

variety.com

Seems like a natural thing at this point. Subscribe, binge, cancel, jump to a different service, repeat. What choice have we got, if each service has just a handful of good content and takes a while to produce more?

 

[MisterPenguin]

With U.S. Fee Hike, Is Disney+ Without Ads Overpriced?

The price of the ad-free version of Disney+ in the U.S. is now $10.99 per month — and that may be more than the market value of the content on the streaming service, according to a recent ana…

variety.com

Disney Plans to Launch New Products For Ad-Supported Tier of Disney+

As Disney launches the ad-supported tier of Disney+ Thursday, subscribers can expect to see 15-and 30-second commercials from marketers including Marriott, Chick-fil-A and Mercedes. The real bells …

variety.com

 

[MisterPenguin]

Seems like a natural thing at this point. Subscribe, binge, cancel, jump to a different service, repeat. What choice have we got, if each service has just a handful of good content and takes a while to produce more?

There's a market for an App that will track which streaming shows you want to see and will sign you up for the right streamer for a month and immediately cancel the auto-renewal. The app will remind you of your time frame to binge that streamer's content.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

So basically cable?

…wow…I can see the “Disney difference”

No way they ever lose a single subscriber with this genius

75,000,000 annually in Orlando would be a pretty decent idea to the stockholders right about now.

Thank god Bob knows better

 

[_caleb]

So basically cable?

…wow…I can see the “Disney difference”

No way they ever lose a single subscriber with this genius

75,000,000 annually in Orlando would be a pretty decent idea to the stockholders right about now.

Thank god Bob knows better

Aren’t you salty today? No. Not basically cable. See, “cable” is linear TV—what’s broadcasting on a channel is what you can watch right now. Streaming, on the other hand, is a service that allows you to watch any movie or show on-demand.

It’d be more like having to cancel Comcast to switch to Spectrum because Comcast doesn’t carry the shows you like.

But you already knew the difference, you were just being, well, grumpy.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Aren’t you salty today? No. Not basically cable. See, “cable” is linear TV—what’s broadcasting on a channel is what you can watch right now. Streaming, on the other hand, is a service that allows you to watch any movie or show on-demand.

It’d be more like having to cancel Comcast to switch to Spectrum because Comcast doesn’t carry the shows you like.

But you already knew the difference, you were just being, well, grumpy.

It’s a “day ending in Y”, isn’t it?

But seriously…it’s not really a Disney specific criticism as much of how quickly the old guard decided they needed their 20th century back…

The counter is “aha!!! that was linear”

But digital on demand has been around for a long time. A lot of the appeal of the stream was dropping the disjointed ad format.

They’re gonna learn quickly…ads are not gonna create “cable 2.0”…and nobody ever really wanted to pay for cable. So it will be again