I Want It All: Disney's Streaming Service

CNN

You may have heard by now that The Walt Disney Company is planning on pulling it’s media content from Netflix in 2019.  It was also announced that Disney will launch its own streaming service and has plans to acquire BAMTech, a streaming and marketing service.

With the change in viewing habits, more people are cutting cable cords and moving to strictly streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon.  Numerous households subscribe to several of the streaming services, and according to eMarketer, a digital research firm, almost  80% of millennials have access to streaming services.

With these statistics, it is no surprise that Disney is ready to venture out into it’s own streaming platform.  The only thing that surprises me is that it’s taken this long for them to do so.

ESPN

A majority of The Walt Disney Company’s cable earnings come from ESPN and it’s countless subchannels.  However, with the countless other ways to watch a sporting event on a mobile device, ESPN’s earnings have steadily dropped over the last few years.

When Disney launches its ESPN streaming service is 2018, it will include thousands of live regional, national, and international sporting events.  For the sports lover, this will be a must-have package to keep track of all the sporting events.  And for those of us who don’t care much about sports, we won’t have to pay for a service we don’t even watch.  Brilliant.  Thank you, Iger.

In 2019, Disney will launch its separate Disney streaming services that will include live action and animated movies from Disney and Pixar as well as content from the Disney Channel, Disney Junior, and Disney XD.  It is unclear yet if content from ABC and Freeform will be included in the streaming service.

Unlike Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, Disney has a time-tested vault full of classic movies and TV shows that people are going to be willing to pay for.  They don’t have to struggle to prove they can make an original movie - they’ve been doing it since the 1930s, which is decades longer than any of its current streaming competitors have been around.

Paul R. La Monica, a digital correspondent for CNN, had this to say about the future of streaming services:  “But here's the thing. For many couch potatoes, a subscription to several of these services -- if not all of them -- might still be necessary because they all churn out original, exclusive content.  That's especially the case with Netflix. Disney won't have House of Cards, Orange is the New Black or Stranger Things.

It's important to remember that Netflix also has original shows that are produced by other big media companies, and Hollywood studios may decide they would rather put their content on their own platforms than on Netflix.  For example, Disney owns Marvel, and it's not clear whether Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, all based on Marvel characters, will stay on Netflix or move to the new Disney service. The Defenders, a new show that brings these four together, will premiere on Netflix on August 18.

The other streaming companies also realize they need their own hits to attract subscribers. Want to watch the dystopian nightmare that is The Handmaid's Tale? You need Hulu. Amazon is home to the award-winning Transparent as well as Sneaky Pete and Mozart in the Jungle. And you won't find Game of Thrones streaming anywhere but HBO Go or the Internet-only subscription service HBO Now.

With so many streaming services offering a variety of original content, it will be interesting to see how the addition of Disney’s own streaming service will pan out over the next few years.  There are still some questions to be answered, most importantly the cost.  With it’s competitors currently charging anywhere from $7 to $12 for their streaming services, it could be assumed that Disney’s service would fall in that range as well.  

An avid Disney tweeter and former fellow Cast Member friend, Matt DeWater, recently offered his thoughts on Disney’s future pricing and I think it would work well.  He suggested a tier system for the Disney content.  For a Disney only streaming services, it could be $7; a Marvel tier could be $5; a Star Wars tier could be $5; and if you bundled them all together, it could be $15.  Of course with inflation over the next few years, the pricing could go up but even $20 a month for all of Disney’s content would not be a bad deal at all.

Another important question that still remains is exactly what content will be available.  Will it be all of Disney’s repertoire of animated and live action movies and TV shows?  Will it cycle in content for so many months and then remove it to keep the demand up for it?  Will the Marvel shows on Netflix be removed from Netflix and put on the Disney streaming services?  I guess only time will tell.  It will be an interesting two years to say the least.  All I know is that I am super excited to see what is to come.

Robyn Fleenor is a contributing writer for The Mouse Knows Best Podcast. She is an avid Disney fanatic and would rather be at Walt Disney World eating glazed almonds than anything else.  When she isn't working to pay for her next Disney vacation, she likes to binge watch TV shows and fall in love with fictional characters. She can be found tweeting at @rahrah6263.