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

[MarvelCharacterNerd]

What classic stuff are you interested in that isn’t on Disney+?

Over 700 Disney-Owned Films And Shows Missing From Disney Plus

When the streaming service launched back in November 2019, Disney Plus did fans a great favor when they announced future release dates for 77 of their recent films. Since then, ...

whatsondisneyplus.com

If all the older Walt-era stuff especially - from Mickey Mouse Club to Wonderful World of Disney/Color/etc. was on there, I'd have plenty more to dig into. (I'd love to see more of the classic Fox TV and film content while I'm asking, too - but at least I'd understand if that was tied up on other services for now - classic Disney stuff isn't.)

Where is the Walt Disney Treasures material?

WHY isn't Make Mine Music or Summer Magic or Watcher in the Woods or Something Wicked This Way Comes on there?

Where is House of Mouse for crying out loud?

I was glad they finally just added Zorro. Where is everything else?

 

[DisneyFan32]

Over 700 Disney-Owned Films And Shows Missing From Disney Plus

When the streaming service launched back in November 2019, Disney Plus did fans a great favor when they announced future release dates for 77 of their recent films. Since then, ...

whatsondisneyplus.com

If all the older Walt-era stuff especially - from Mickey Mouse Club to Wonderful World of Disney/Color/etc. was on there, I'd have plenty more to dig into. (I'd love to see more of the classic Fox TV and film content while I'm asking, too - but at least I'd understand if that was tied up on other services for now - classic Disney stuff isn't.)

Where is the Walt Disney Treasures material?

WHY isn't Make Mine Music or Summer Magic or Watcher in the Woods or Something Wicked This Way Comes on there?

Where is House of Mouse for crying out loud?

I was glad they finally just added Zorro. Where is everything else?

I bet Super Mario Bros. (1993) movie (which it will be 30th anniversary of the film) will be coming to Disney+ in Spring 2023 due to The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) is coming to the theaters in April 7th 2023.

 

[brb1006]

Over 700 Disney-Owned Films And Shows Missing From Disney Plus

When the streaming service launched back in November 2019, Disney Plus did fans a great favor when they announced future release dates for 77 of their recent films. Since then, ...

whatsondisneyplus.com

If all the older Walt-era stuff especially - from Mickey Mouse Club to Wonderful World of Disney/Color/etc. was on there, I'd have plenty more to dig into. (I'd love to see more of the classic Fox TV and film content while I'm asking, too - but at least I'd understand if that was tied up on other services for now - classic Disney stuff isn't.)

Where is the Walt Disney Treasures material?

WHY isn't Make Mine Music or Summer Magic or Watcher in the Woods or Something Wicked This Way Comes on there?

Where is House of Mouse for crying out loud?

I was glad they finally just added Zorro. Where is everything else?

Where the heck is So Dear to My Heart from 1948?

 

[tcool123]

Over 700 Disney-Owned Films And Shows Missing From Disney Plus

When the streaming service launched back in November 2019, Disney Plus did fans a great favor when they announced future release dates for 77 of their recent films. Since then, ...

whatsondisneyplus.com

If all the older Walt-era stuff especially - from Mickey Mouse Club to Wonderful World of Disney/Color/etc. was on there, I'd have plenty more to dig into. (I'd love to see more of the classic Fox TV and film content while I'm asking, too - but at least I'd understand if that was tied up on other services for now - classic Disney stuff isn't.)

Where is the Walt Disney Treasures material?

WHY isn't Make Mine Music or Summer Magic or Watcher in the Woods or Something Wicked This Way Comes on there?

Where is House of Mouse for crying out loud?

I was glad they finally just added Zorro. Where is everything else?

In case you're truly interested in where some of these films are:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sSPP70vIL1AH0HXxHanG9u5RyrgE_VAgy_VUVoTp0H4/edit#heading=h.bq6im2fkem0u

Made this a while back, and not much has changed. Much of the legacy content - if its even available, is part of the Disney Movie Club

 

[MarvelCharacterNerd]

In case you're truly interested in where some of these films are:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sSPP70vIL1AH0HXxHanG9u5RyrgE_VAgy_VUVoTp0H4/edit#heading=h.bq6im2fkem0u

Made this a while back, and not much has changed. Much of the legacy content - if its even available, is part of the Disney Movie Club

Respect for doing the homework, but I'm not up for buying much more on blu-ray at this point. I bought into the idea of Disney+ with the dream of 'one resource - all things Disney' and so many of the missing items are just inexcusable at this point.

 

[Disney Irish]

Respect for doing the homework, but I'm not up for buying much more on blu-ray at this point. I bought into the idea of Disney+ with the dream of 'one resource - all things Disney' and so many of the missing items are just inexcusable at this point.

Well it might be time to find (if you don't know one already) a shareholder who attends that can ask Iger at the shareholder meeting when the rest of the Vault is going to come to D+.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

What classic stuff are you interested in that isn’t on Disney+?

Great Locomotive Chase!!

 

[doctornick]

Well it might be time to find (if you don't know one already) a shareholder who attends that can ask Iger at the shareholder meeting when the rest of the Vault is going to come to D+.

While the vast majority of the stuff really won't move the needle at all (we are probably talking about stuff that maybe 0.1% of Disney subscribers might ever watch), I am surprised they don't periodically drop some classic content to the service just to buff up the "what's new" section. There's been stretches where they only put 1 or 2 things out in a given week and that's the perfect time to add some "from the vault" stuff to be more robust. I mean, I get not wanting to invest to make old programming tolerable for HD TV sets, but for the stuff they've already updated, why not use them?

Maybe they will add a bunch of vintage programming for the 100th anniversary in October 2023.

 

[MarvelCharacterNerd]

Well it might be time to find (if you don't know one already) a shareholder who attends that can ask Iger at the shareholder meeting when the rest of the Vault is going to come to D+.

They already have my money for the year. lol So either they'll add more stuff I want to watch or I'll drop the annual sub and just binge and purge as new content arrives.

But if they haven't added all that content by now, it's clearly a low priority which asking at a shareholder meeting won't move the needle on. However, even the optics that classic content is a low priority is just... very poor show.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I mean, I get not wanting to invest to make old programming tolerable for HD TV sets, but for the stuff they've already updated, why not use them?

There's a ton of stuff that has been available on itunes or TCM in HD, but not on Disney+ or Blu-ray...The Great Locomotive Chase is one of them.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Over 700 Disney-Owned Films And Shows Missing From Disney Plus

When the streaming service launched back in November 2019, Disney Plus did fans a great favor when they announced future release dates for 77 of their recent films. Since then, ...

whatsondisneyplus.com

If all the older Walt-era stuff especially - from Mickey Mouse Club to Wonderful World of Disney/Color/etc. was on there, I'd have plenty more to dig into. (I'd love to see more of the classic Fox TV and film content while I'm asking, too - but at least I'd understand if that was tied up on other services for now - classic Disney stuff isn't.)

Where is the Walt Disney Treasures material?

WHY isn't Make Mine Music or Summer Magic or Watcher in the Woods or Something Wicked This Way Comes on there?

Where is House of Mouse for crying out loud?

I was glad they finally just added Zorro. Where is everything else?

But the four hour long Zorro episodes that aired as a part of Walt Disney Presents are not on Disney+

House of Mouse STILL not being on the platform makes no sense. Same with the Aladdin TV series.

 

[DisneyFan32]

But the four hour long Zorro episodes that aired as a part of Walt Disney Presents are not on Disney+

House of Mouse STILL not being on the platform makes no sense. Same with the Aladdin TV series.

I think MeTV's Toon in With Me should adding alot of classic Disney shorts to air along with Warner Bros., MGM, and other cartoon studio shorts.

 

[BrianLo]

So if you want to get real technical, in the scenario that has been discussed, Hulu as a separate streaming service would go away. It would become part of the D+ streaming service. Again this is exactly what happened with Star outside the US. Star was a separate streaming service outside of the US, similar to Hulu, which Disney acquired as part of the 21st Century deal. They didn't shut it down, they just merged it into D+ to make D+ stronger outside of the US. So now you access Star through the D+ instead of through a separate app and subscription. The same is likely to happen with Hulu in 2024/2025. It won't be shutdown, it'll just become part of D+, making D+ stronger in the US. So Hulu and its content will still be available, it'll just be accessed through D+.

Sort of. In most of the major International markets Star did not exist as a separate streaming service. It was introduced directly into D+, not merged. It obviously started on the lower content end as Disney waited for a lot of their licensing deals to play out with other streamers in those markets.

I think you'll recall I've been long on your side beating the same drum. However, I do have to add the slight speculative note that Hulu is now fairly robust in the US with relatively high subscriber pricing. Hulu is somewhat financially justifying its own existence within that market.

I do wonder if Hulu will undergo an intermediary step of sorts. Those on the bundle have Hulu as a tab on D+, but those just subscribed to D+ don't. It makes the lowest subscription buy in price for D+ quite a bit higher than it is now. Versus in international markets such as Canada it was only a few dollar incremental increase when the service was first rolled in.

I do see a slight outside possibility for this reason Hulu never totally fully integrates in the US. I.e. you can still elect to have D+ content and not pay for Hulu. Further exacerbated by Hulu + SVOD. Almost like Disney has built themselves a lucrative little a la carte system in the US with Disney, ESPN and Hulu.

 

[Disney Irish]

So it appears that

Sort of. In most of the major International markets Star did not exist as a separate streaming service. It was introduced directly into D+, not merged. It obviously started on the lower content end as Disney waited for a lot of their licensing deals to play out with other streamers in those markets.

I think you'll recall I've been long on your side beating the same drum. However, I do have to add the slight speculative note that Hulu is now fairly robust in the US with relatively high subscriber pricing. Hulu is somewhat financially justifying its own existence within that market.

I do wonder if Hulu will undergo an intermediary step of sorts. Those on the bundle have Hulu as a tab on D+, but those just subscribed to D+ don't. It makes the lowest subscription buy in price for D+ quite a bit higher than it is now. Versus in international markets such as Canada it was only a few dollar incremental increase when the service was first rolled in.

I do see a slight outside possibility for this reason Hulu never totally fully integrates in the US. I.e. you can still elect to have D+ content and not pay for Hulu. Further exacerbated by Hulu + SVOD. Almost like Disney has built themselves a lucrative little a la carte system in the US with Disney, ESPN and Hulu.

I would agree that Star wasn't in a large majority of markets outside of Asia prior to Disney+. The Star India brand was running as a separate service in India as it primary service prior to Disney taking over 21st Century. This was one of the reasons for Disney wanting 21st Century, and what lead to Star being offered in other regions as part of D+.

And while Hulu is now more robust in terms of content, its ultimately the same content (with very slight regional differences outside the US) as Star. From what I've found there is nothing on Hulu (outside of the LiveTV feature) that is exclusive to only Hulu. So again given that they've done all this work to make Hulu match Star in terms of content it only makes sense to have Hulu merged into D+ when it comes under full Disney ownership.

As for access to Hulu under a D+ integration, I do suspect it'll be tier based in the US. Lowest tier D+ only with Ads and the highest tier is D+, Hulu with LiveTV, with no Ads, and then every variation in-between.

And yes I accept there is a very slight outside possibility that they may change course and decide to keep them separate services. But at this point that seems like less of a possibility as time goes on and we inch closer to 2024.

Also longer term I see Disney wanting to expand ESPN+ outside of the US into other regions to match ESPN's broadcast channels, which is why things like the ICC rights made sense. And when you include the recent agreements with DraftKings and Caesars you can see how those companies want to expand their reach outside the US as well, using ESPN to do it.

Disney has been setting this up so that all services will be the same around the globe no matter what region you call home.

 

[Disney Irish]

So D+ has 5 of the top 10 shows that were pirated in 2022:

‘House of the Dragon’ Is The Most Pirated TV-Show of 2022 * TorrentFreak

'House of the Dragon' is the most-pirated TV show released on torrent sites in 2022. The Game of Thrones successor replaces 'Wandavision'.

torrentfreak.com

 

[Elijah Abrams]

So it appears that

I would agree that Star wasn't in a large majority of markets outside of Asia prior to Disney+. The Star India brand was running as a separate service in India as it primary service prior to Disney taking over 21st Century. This was one of the reasons for Disney wanting 21st Century, and what lead to Star being offered in other regions as part of D+.

And while Hulu is now more robust in terms of content, its ultimately the same content (with very slight regional differences outside the US) as Star. From what I've found there is nothing on Hulu (outside of the LiveTV feature) that is exclusive to only Hulu. So again given that they've done all this work to make Hulu match Star in terms of content it only makes sense to have Hulu merged into D+ when it comes under full Disney ownership.

As for access to Hulu under a D+ integration, I do suspect it'll be tier based in the US. Lowest tier D+ only with Ads and the highest tier is D+, Hulu with LiveTV, with no Ads, and then every variation in-between.

And yes I accept there is a very slight outside possibility that they may change course and decide to keep them separate services. But at this point that seems like less of a possibility as time goes on and we inch closer to 2024.

Also longer term I see Disney wanting to expand ESPN+ outside of the US into other regions to match ESPN's broadcast channels, which is why things like the ICC rights made sense. And when you include the recent agreements with DraftKings and Caesars you can see how those companies want to expand their reach outside the US as well, using ESPN to do it.

Disney has been setting this up so that all services will be the same around the globe no matter what region you call home.

Can you agree to this?: Comcast buys Disney's stake in Hulu in 2024, while Disney moves all their Hulu content to Disney+, allowing the latter to be expanded with more mature content (from the ABC, FX, Touchstone, Hollywood, 20th Century (Fox), (Fox) Searchlight, 20th (Century Fox) Television, Onyx, and, via a contract, Sony libraries under a Star-esque hub) as well as sports content (from ESPN).

 

[Disney Irish]

Can you agree to this?: Comcast buys Disney's stake in Hulu in 2024, while Disney moves all their Hulu content to Disney+, allowing the latter to be expanded with more mature content (from the ABC, FX, Touchstone, Hollywood, 20th Century (Fox), (Fox) Searchlight, 20th (Century Fox) Television, Onyx, and, via a contract, Sony libraries under a Star-esque hub) as well as sports content (from ESPN).

That would make no sense, I'm not even sure the terms of the agreement for Hulu ownership would even allow such a situation to occur.

Why would Comcast want Hulu if all the content is removed? Basically once the content is removed there is nothing left worth anything, Hulu is effectively worthless at that point. Thus making the value of Hulu less than what Comcast put into it in the first place, making it a not smart business decision.

So no I wouldn't agree that would be something possible to happen.

By the end of 2024 Hulu will either:

1. Be completely owned and under Disney control, the most likely scenario.
2. Be completely owned and under Comcast control, less likely scenario.
3. Or nothing happens in 2024, and Disney retains its 66% and Comcast retains its 33%, even less likely scenario.

The first is the most likely scenario.

 

[_caleb]

Can you agree to this?: Comcast buys Disney's stake in Hulu in 2024, while Disney moves all their Hulu content to Disney+, allowing the latter to be expanded with more mature content (from the ABC, FX, Touchstone, Hollywood, 20th Century (Fox), (Fox) Searchlight, 20th (Century Fox) Television, Onyx, and, via a contract, Sony libraries under a Star-esque hub) as well as sports content (from ESPN).

Seems like maybe you're a fan of Hulu's user interface?

 

[Elijah Abrams]

That would make no sense, I'm not even sure the terms of the agreement for Hulu ownership would even allow such a situation to occur.

Why would Comcast want Hulu if all the content is removed? Basically once the content is removed there is nothing left worth anything, Hulu is effectively worthless at that point. Thus making the value of Hulu less than what Comcast put into it in the first place, making it a not smart business decision.

So no I wouldn't agree that would be something possible to happen.

By the end of 2024 Hulu will either:

1. Be completely owned and under Disney control, the most likely scenario.
2. Be completely owned and under Comcast control, less likely scenario.
3. Or nothing happens in 2024, and Disney retains its 66% and Comcast retains its 33%, even less likely scenario.

The first is the most likely scenario.

Then maybe Disney shouldn’t have bought Fox if it puts the future of Hulu in question (whether it will be folded/integrated into D+ or stay active). The struggle is probably upsetting Hulu fans and users.

 

[Disney Irish]

Then maybe Disney shouldn’t have bought Fox if it puts the future of Hulu in question (whether it will be folded/integrated into D+ or stay active). The struggle is probably upsetting Hulu fans and users.

I honestly don't think Hulu's future is in question. With Disney, Hulu will be there in one form or another. And after 3 years I haven't seen any major reports of "Hulu fans" being upset by any "struggle" of uncertainty.

But lets play out this scenario that you keep insisting is a potential, Comcast buying Hulu. Ok, so Disney and Comcast rip up the existing agreement and Disney allows Comcast to buy Disney's 66% and take over Hulu. Once they take full control of Hulu, Comcast then moves all content from Hulu to Peacock, Hulu gets shutdown, and all users of Hulu are now Peacock users. Because why would Comcast keep Hulu around as a separate service instead of merging it with their own service, they wouldn't. They'd cannibalize it just for the users and content to bolster up their own service, as they don't care about the Hulu service itself. So how is that any better for Hulu users?