Disney Irish
Premium Member
I agree, I have a feeling they'll revisit this series in the future.
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Disney's Streaming Services: Disney+ (and Hulu, ESPN+, Star, & hotstar)
- Thread starter MisterPenguin
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The Grand Inquisitor
Well-Known Member
I agree every upcoming movie cant just be Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Fox. It should be something new like this. I guarantee it would be a massive hit.
In just over 5 months Disney Plus has now signed up over 50 million customers. I guess all those who insisted that Disney Plus would take years to reach profitability will now admit they were wrong. Disney Plus will infect reach profitability before the end of June.
Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
Here is the article from Variety regarding this.
Disney Plus Hits 50 Million Subscribers
Within five months of initial launch, Disney Plus has signed up 50 million paid subscribers worldwide, the media company said.
variety.com
They initially hoped to hit 60-90 million subs by 2024. Incredible.
Here is the article from Variety regarding this.
Disney Plus Hits 50 Million Subscribers
Within five months of initial launch, Disney Plus has signed up 50 million paid subscribers worldwide, the media company said.
They initially hoped to hit 60-90 million subs by 2024. Incredible.
I hope they hit their 18 Million goal for the end of 2020!!!
Disney+ Paid Subscriber Count Surpasses 50 Million Milestone - The Walt Disney Company
Launched five months ago, the service is now available in more than a dozen countries around the world. Continuing to delight consumers around …Read More
thewaltdisneycompany.com
Tony Perkis
Well-Known Member
A global pandemic probably wasn’t in their initial forecasting.Here is the article from Variety regarding this.
Disney Plus Hits 50 Million Subscribers
Within five months of initial launch, Disney Plus has signed up 50 million paid subscribers worldwide, the media company said.
They initially hoped to hit 60-90 million subs by 2024. Incredible.
They were way ahead of forecasts before the pandemic. The big spike also represents opening in international markets.
A stay-at-home pandemic does help, tho.
Or, it's just the power of Baby Yoda. No one coulda saw that coming!
doctornick
Well-Known Member
Sure I'm sure they'd be happy to be able to say that if they could. But I think what is more important is being more profitable than Netflix, which is likely more easily obtainable given how they don't have to license properties for Disney+ (and at least much of Hulu given the Fox and ABC libraries).
Right. And? How is that any different from a movie studio (or record producer) having different labels for different content? It doesn't always make sense to have one big umbrella for different content that isn't related.
If they wanted they, they would have just bought out Hulu first and launched with a subbrand of Disney under it. Understandably, they did not due that for a variety of reasons but a main reason would be that they feel they can sell Disney+ to a lot of people that wouldn't want to pay (at all or more) for a Hulu service where that is a smaller part of the content. For people who want that all (at least in the US), there's the bundle if they want it
Sounds bad to me. Why taint the Disney brand with the Hulu name? (I'm not suggeting there's anything wrong with Hulu just that they wouldn't want it associated with the Disney brand)
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
Again, I'm not arguing to merge at the studio or brand level. Direct to consumer and streaming services are more akin to Content Delivery/Distribution in the Classic Model.
Put another way - it is akin to Disney owning two separate theatre chains, one only shows Family Friendly content and one only Shows "Other" content.
A single location is totally capable of playing different content for different audiences and sorting them appropriately. Watching Moana in Theatre One does not Dilute the Disney brand because AMC is showing Die Hard in Theatre 3. Or that Sunrise Records cannot host two separate music genres from different records labels.
I'm not sure why a technology platform could not work in a similar fashion. There is a lot of waste for them to be entirely separate entities.
What a horrible analogy. They are completely different things. Are you a parent?
Chip Chipperson
Well-Known Member
The Simpsons short, "Maggie Simpson in 'Playdate with Destiny'" will be added to Disney+ this Friday.
https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/the-simpsons-disney-plus-1234575703/
https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/the-simpsons-disney-plus-1234575703/
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
I'm a Pediatrician.
Why is it a horrible analogy? That's literally what a streaming platform replaces. Brick and mortar stores, theatres and even electronic platforms like iTunes.
I still don't think people understand what I'm saying - I'm not talking about putting a Moana rectangle beside the Die Hard Rectangle. So that the preview starts playing for your child. Really instead of downloading two apps, I'm talking about one. They can still maintain their separate interfaces for branding purposes. You don't scroll down and find DieHard. You purposefully move over to the Hulu Portion. Even with its own separate subscription for the moment.
All it communicates to consumers is added value from a singulair product. The act of downloading an app is a bottle neck to consumers subscribing to both products.
Here's another analogy: Blockbuster Video was capable of hosting separate sections of its stores for kids content and adult content. There are very easy ways to block children into the right components (or simply not subscribe to the Hulu portion at all if that doesn't suit your families media preferences).
I think by having this back and forth from everyone here, the takeaway I'm sensing is that Hulu, FX and Searchlight do not belong under the Disney umbrella. If no one wants them cross pollinating or even acknowledged in the same breath as related, Disney would be better of just selling that entire arm.
The company under Iger has very diligently showed the power of synergy (dirty word). If these products aren't allowed in, they should spin off a second company entirely.
Disney Irish
Premium Member
I'm a Pediatrician.
Why is it a horrible analogy? That's literally what a streaming platform replaces. Brick and mortar stores, theatres and even electronic platforms like iTunes.
I still don't think people understand what I'm saying - I'm not talking about putting a Moana rectangle beside the Die Hard Rectangle. So that the preview starts playing for your child. Really instead of downloading two apps, I'm talking about one. They can still maintain their separate interfaces for branding purposes. You don't scroll down and find DieHard. You purposefully move over to the Hulu Portion. Even with its own separate subscription for the moment.
All it communicates to consumers is added value from a singulair product. The act of downloading an app is a bottle neck to consumers subscribing to both products.
Here's another analogy: Blockbuster Video was capable of hosting separate sections of its stores for kids content and adult content. There are very easy ways to block children into the right components (or simply not subscribe to the Hulu portion at all if that doesn't suit your families media preferences).
I completely agree and feel you can have a single app without blending or "corrupting" the brand. Even though we know deep down that has been happening for decades starting with Touchstone or Miramax.
Now this would be a complete waste. This isn't 1950 anymore, one can have family friendly and non-family friendly under one roof.
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
I know you and I think so, but I'm sensing we're in the minority. This is like the alcohol in Disneyland debate... I see both sides for sure, even though I know I'm on one side. I can't say one side is wrong or right.
I want Disney corporation to be known as a producer of all types of Quality content. Quality for Families, Quality for Four Quadrants (Marvel/Lucasfilm type fare) and Quality for Mature/Awards-type Audiences. I felt Iger did a much better job of achieving the middle than previously.
I really thought the purpose of the Fox purchase was to help achieve the latter.
Tony Perkis
Well-Known Member
I'm a Pediatrician.
Why is it a horrible analogy? That's literally what a streaming platform replaces. Brick and mortar stores, theatres and even electronic platforms like iTunes.
It's not really an apt comparison because the variables operate under very different circumstances.
Firstly, an app and a theatre are not particularly similar, due to the following:
- An app, generally, is owned by the distributor and/or licensor, while a theatre is owned third party
- A single account can stream multiple on televisions, of the same or different content, at the customers' preferences
- A theatre has a specific product offering, only offered at specific times and with a finite number of available spots; customers are more limited by what they can access within a set period of time, which gets further complicated by the cost structure of going out
Disney+ does not operate under this principal, and branding is a huge part of what makes that service particularly successful.
When you go to Disney+, the expectation is that you're getting new and old Walt Disney Pictures, Lucasfilm, and Marvel Studios, as well as family films from Miramax, Touchstone, and 20th Century Fox, as it is fairly common knowledge that Disney owns, or owned, those entities.
This is where the problem comparing Disney+ to a movie theatre arises - customer expectation, and branding.
There's a specific reason that, instead of folding it, The Walt Disney Company rebranded Fox as 20th Century Films. It's a separate entity within a large conglomerate, used for different purposes. This is why Disney didn't merge the two studios into one super studio. It's why ESPN and ABC still operate as their own subsidiaries. The different brands cater to different audiences and for different purposes, and this allows the Disney to set and then maintain consumer expectation. Merging everything into one is turns the entire thing into a mess and convolutes the final product offering (in this case, the distribution system).
You run into multiple problems here.
Just for the sake of argument, let's assume the following:
- Disney means Walt Disney Pictures and primary subsidiaries (Pixar, family Fox, Lucasfilm, Marvel, Disney Channels).
- Hulu means adult Fox, FX and its sister channels, ABC and older skewing network/cable television
- ESPN for sports.
- Buena Vista Entertainment? Buena Vista isn't a widely recognized brand to associate with everything owned by Disney. The first question people will ask is what the hell is BVE?
- Disney? Again, the brand Disney is synonymous with Walt Disney Pictures and sister studios, so people will be surprised to see Alien and Die Hard available.
- Hulu? Where is Beauty and the Beast and Toy Story?
- ESPN? Why is Frozen on my sports app?
- Disney/Hulu/ESPN? Terrible, convoluted name.
Now, you're right, it would be wise to have options for Disney to navigate to Hulu, and maybe even navigate to ESPN, and all combinations in between. This is a common redirect used in other products, such as Facebook/Facebook Messenger and Instagram, across Google apps, across Apple apps.....this list goes on. However, those redirects still lead to their own unique, individual apps that serve specific, different functions.
On top of all that, just from an app construction point of view, the goal is to make applications smaller and more streamlined. The bigger they are, the more the consumers' hardware needs to be consistently upgraded in order to keep up. This leads to crashes, buffering, suffering performance issues, etc. Combining everything, pulling from different, unique servers into one user interface, flies against the wind, not with it.
Again, not a great comparison, because Blockbuster was viewed as a neutral provider not bound by the branding of the films/television shows they offered. Same with theatres. Disney+ does not have that luxury.
Correct. Branding based on product offering. Part of the 4 Ps. Marketing 101.
Incorrect.
The Walt Disney Company is an international conglomerate that can and does cater to multitudes of different audiences and customers, like the vast majority of conglomerates. There's a reason why these corporations don't merge everything in-house, as referenced several times in this thread.
I think it's a bit naive to think that if it can't fit under the Disney+ app, which comes with predetermined expectations from consumers, then it shouldn't be with Disney. Major conglomerates/corporations don't operate with that mindset, at all.
And luckily, Disney clearly agrees with my rationale (or I agree with their's, either or) by having multi-service subscription deals.
Synergy does not mean everything under one roof.
Under one roof is a massive waste of time and resources; creating subsidiaries and separate entities allows these organizations to allocate their production resources more effectively and market their products with a much greater demographic/target accuracy.
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Tony Perkis
Well-Known Member
I'd like this, but my reaction options were taken away from me because some people deserved the responses they received.
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
@Tony Perkis - Well reasoned and rationale. Essentially Disney+ IS the only branded platform. I do see and accept the power in that. Even if I personally am not opposed to more branded mixing. They really are the only platform currently that is adhering to a more strict definition and I think that will and is serving them well.
The Facebook messenger like redirect was pretty much the majority of what I was arguing for. But it's helpful to point out those limitations as well.
The Facebook messenger like redirect was pretty much the majority of what I was arguing for. But it's helpful to point out those limitations as well.
Tony Perkis
Well-Known Member
I'm with you on preference. Do I particularly care if A Bug's Life and The Human Centipede are listed next to each other to combine the two apps into one? No. I'll watch one and skip the other (have fun predicting which is which), but I have both services and no kids, so it's a moot point for my personal viewing.
From a macro view, knowing there's no way to cleanly combine the two, content discrepancies and size being why, it just makes too much sense to make them separate and brand around those differences. The Facebook Messenger app example is kind of perfect, because it was taken out of the main Facebook app for two reasons:
- It requires a significant amount of server space that couldn't be combined with the main application without significant slowdown (a similar concern to ESPN, Disney+, and Google).
- A not-insignificant number of people use the two apps in very different ways, requiring more robust yet user-friendly options for each, which wouldn't be optimal with all-in-one due to the size and efficiency of the combined app (Disney+ has 4K HDR and offline downloading on top of general streaming (with pre-built ads on the main subscription tier), Hulu has Live TV, and they both pull from different resources).
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Disney Irish
Premium Member
@Tony Perkis while I'll agree with @BrianLo your responses are well thought out there is a couple flaws in your thinking.
1. Disney couldn't initially put Hulu under a single streaming app because they didn't own it fully. Even now technically they don't own it fully, but they do now own the controlling share which gives them more power. Its the reason why they started marketing it as well as ESPN with the + to show that its under one brand. The Disney brand, all under the + apps. So you have Disney+, Hulu+, and ESPN+. So if you didn't want people to associate Hulu content with Disney, well that ship has sailed. And from what I can tell those lines will blur even more as time goes on. Maybe not a single app like myself and @BrianLo are talking about but a blurring of the lines none the less.
2. There are many reasons why you keep an existing entity that gets purchased as a named subsidiary. Specifically for tax benefits and established contracts. For example Marvel has existing contracts with Sony and Universal that as we've seen played out in the media can't just simply be rewritten. So the names of those entities must legally be maintained for such reasons.
3. From a app side you don't actually store all the content on the device. So having one app for all services wouldn't cause slow downs on the devices if written correctly. Additionally even Disney+ content is not all stored on a single server in the backend (at least it shouldn't be for many reasons). Its stored on many servers in a large server farm, likely now where Hulu content is also stored. In the world of cloud it is even possible to silo content on a single server, its called colocation. Its the ability to have a single host have a multitude of services under a single roof without co-mingling the services. In fact without going into much detail I can say they are doing this for sure, I have personal knowledge of it. It only makes sense to bring all content under one roof to save money and resources, no matter if you display it to the end user as multiple apps. Apple does the same thing for all their services as well. So does Google, Amazon, or any cloud vendor. In fact I can say that even with Amazon AWS they don't have a single server for each company they host. That would be too costly. They virtualize it under a cluster of servers and host many customers on shared hardware. Its what allows them to spin up your resources quickly for your business.
4. Corporate synergy does mean everything under one roof. Its the whole point of synergy, a larger corporation that is better than the two separate entities alone. Otherwise why merge Company A with Company B in the first place. If you have a company that can't synergize well then you have multiple competing forces that lead to all entities failing. Its the reason why you are seeing many Disney creatives from other Disney business units working on projects from another business unit. Marvel working on Lucas for example and so on.
There are other points, such as Disney removing the Fox name, but that is more for specific branding and marketing purposes. Basically to separate it from the "New Fox" company.
1. Disney couldn't initially put Hulu under a single streaming app because they didn't own it fully. Even now technically they don't own it fully, but they do now own the controlling share which gives them more power. Its the reason why they started marketing it as well as ESPN with the + to show that its under one brand. The Disney brand, all under the + apps. So you have Disney+, Hulu+, and ESPN+. So if you didn't want people to associate Hulu content with Disney, well that ship has sailed. And from what I can tell those lines will blur even more as time goes on. Maybe not a single app like myself and @BrianLo are talking about but a blurring of the lines none the less.
2. There are many reasons why you keep an existing entity that gets purchased as a named subsidiary. Specifically for tax benefits and established contracts. For example Marvel has existing contracts with Sony and Universal that as we've seen played out in the media can't just simply be rewritten. So the names of those entities must legally be maintained for such reasons.
3. From a app side you don't actually store all the content on the device. So having one app for all services wouldn't cause slow downs on the devices if written correctly. Additionally even Disney+ content is not all stored on a single server in the backend (at least it shouldn't be for many reasons). Its stored on many servers in a large server farm, likely now where Hulu content is also stored. In the world of cloud it is even possible to silo content on a single server, its called colocation. Its the ability to have a single host have a multitude of services under a single roof without co-mingling the services. In fact without going into much detail I can say they are doing this for sure, I have personal knowledge of it. It only makes sense to bring all content under one roof to save money and resources, no matter if you display it to the end user as multiple apps. Apple does the same thing for all their services as well. So does Google, Amazon, or any cloud vendor. In fact I can say that even with Amazon AWS they don't have a single server for each company they host. That would be too costly. They virtualize it under a cluster of servers and host many customers on shared hardware. Its what allows them to spin up your resources quickly for your business.
4. Corporate synergy does mean everything under one roof. Its the whole point of synergy, a larger corporation that is better than the two separate entities alone. Otherwise why merge Company A with Company B in the first place. If you have a company that can't synergize well then you have multiple competing forces that lead to all entities failing. Its the reason why you are seeing many Disney creatives from other Disney business units working on projects from another business unit. Marvel working on Lucas for example and so on.
There are other points, such as Disney removing the Fox name, but that is more for specific branding and marketing purposes. Basically to separate it from the "New Fox" company.