With the popularity of exclusive streaming services rising rapidly within the past few years, it seems as if every company is coming out with their own subscription based service featuring content that you can’t get anywhere else. It’s not uncommon for someone to have a subscription to several different services, such as Netflix, Hulu, HBO and Amazon Prime. Most of these subscriptions range from $7 to $18 a month, but the cost adds up surprisingly quickly when you have to purchase multiple subscriptions to stay up to date with your favorite shows.
It’s already hard enough to keep track of which site offers which shows, and with Disney’s recent unveiling of their new service, Disney Plus, it just got even harder. This new service will cost $6.99 a month and is launching on November 12. It will exclusively feature almost all of Disney’s shows and movies.
To people who grew up watching Disney classics, this news isn’t so exciting. Creating an exclusive streaming service for makes it so much harder to watch favorite childhood movies and shows, as Disney has already taken the majority of their content off of Netflix, Hulu and other sites that it was previously accessible on. A lot of people may not be willing to pay the extra $7 a month, which means unfortunately for them, they won’t get to experience the magic of Disney .
While many people immediately think of cult classics like The Lion King, The Little Mermaid and The Jungle Book when they hear the words “Disney movie”, Disney as a company owns the rights to a lot of other franchises, such as Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars. Disney Plus also owns exclusive rights to all of the movies under these subdivisions, which greatly widens the margin of content that viewers will be missing if they don’t purchase this service. This includes all Disney Pixar collaborations, every Star Wars movie and a complete collection of Marvel movies, too. However, Disney isn’t releasing all of this content at once, and customers will have to wait as they gradually release new movies and shows every month. For example, they don’t plan on offering Avengers: Endgame until December 11.
Not only will this service feature Disney’s old content, but they plan on creating and releasing new content on it too. This includes a Star Wars spinoff series, a remake of Home Alone, a live action Lady and the Tramp and much more. While they do have many different genres coming to the site, all of the content will be family friendly, with nothing above a PG-13 rating. The service is clearly targeted towards younger kids, but people of all ages enjoy Disney and are likely to partake in Disney Plus.
On the positive side of things, Disney has made the service very affordable at just under 7 dollars. Compared to Netflix’s $16 a month, that seems like nothing, but it is unlikely that Disney Plus will keep its price so low. With streaming services popping up left and right, the market is becoming highly competitive, so Disney may have to raise the price to keep the service in business. Apple has also recently unveiled plans for Apple TV Plus, which doesn’t have a price yet.
With positives and negatives to Disney Plus, the success is very unpredictable until the actual release date. It seems unlikely that it will pose a major rivalry to Netflix, but then again, Disney is so widespread and loved globally that anything could happen.