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Disney+ Streaming Service To Launch In November, Priced At $6.99 Monthly (variety.com) 130

Posted by BeauHD from the another-challenger-enters-the-arena dept.
Disney has announced that its highly anticipated new streaming service, Disney+, will launch in the U.S. on November 12 with a price of $6.99 per month. Variety has more details: The subscription VOD service represents Disney's next major foray into the video-streaming wars. By pricing it well below Netflix, the Mouse House is betting it can rapidly drive up Disney+ customer base with a melange of content that appeals to multiple demographics, including movies and TV shows from its Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and Disney brands.

At launch, Disney+ will include 7,500 episodes, including from 25 original series; 400 library movie titles; and 100 recent theatrical films releases, according to Agnes Chu, senior VP of content, Disney+. That includes exclusive rights to all 30 seasons of "The Simpsons," which Disney obtained through the acquisition of 21st Century Fox. In year five of Disney+, the company expects to have an annual production slate of some 50 originals, Chu said. Disney+ will be an ad-free service, supported solely by subscription fees. It's going to have a wide platform footprint, spanning game consoles, smart TVs and connected streaming devices, including Roku and PlayStation 4, said Michael Paull, president of Disney Streaming Services (formerly BAMTech). "After Disney+'s initial North American launch in the fourth quarter of 2019, the service will roll out to Europe, Latin America and Asia as Disney's international rights return to the company from licensees," the report adds. Kevin Mayer, chairman of Disney's Direct-to-Customer and International business segment, also said that the company will "likely" offer a discounted bundle combining Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu.

All of Disney+'s content will be available to download for offline viewing and will be available in 4K. Some of the content subscribers will have access to includes all of the Star Wars films, 250 hours of NatGeo content, and hundreds of episodes from Disney Channel shows as well as a brand-new "Phineas and Ferb" movie.
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Disney+ Streaming Service To Launch In November, Priced At $6.99 Monthly More

Disney+ Streaming Service To Launch In November, Priced At $6.99 Monthly

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  • But will Song of the South be on it? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11, 2019 @09:09PM (#58424942)

    That's all anyone cares about.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I wonder if Peter Pan will be on it. Hard to edit out the Indians.

      Even the later stories are iffy when you think about them. Ariel, at age 16, marries literally the first man she has ever met and ends up murdering Ursula with his help. Jasmine, age 14, ends up marrying Aladdin after just a few days, an adult who takes advantage of her childish naivety by pretending to be a prince.

      Best not to think too hard about it.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Beast kidnaps and brainwashes a girl into being his organ donor.

        Aurora is sexually assaulted while sleeping. Snow White is the concubine of a bunch of dwarf miners. Cinderella is forced into domestic servitude and spreads her legs to get out of it.

        There is no beauty in being a Disney princess.

        The only one who even takes an active role in her life is Eilonwy from the Black Cauldron.

    • How about The Simpsons S03E01 Stark Raving Dad?

  • Simpsons? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So all episodes will no longer be on FX or FXX?

  • I wasn't going to do it, but if the Disney+ thing holds all the Star Wars content damn them if they didn't price it JUST low enough I will probably go for it after all.

    If they have an AppleTV app.

    • Re:Will probably subscribe (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Thursday April 11, 2019 @10:29PM (#58425118) Homepage

      Nope, not even close. Disney, although is doesn't know it yet, has introduced the great streaming churn. People will swap streaming services upon a regular basis, as none of them will end up with sufficient content, ignoring all the filler crap no one watches, people will not pay for multiple services, they will simply swap on a quarterly or half yearly basis, depending upon how many they want to go with.

      Churning streaming services will become the norm and they will all go hungry trying to eat each others lunch. They will end up trying all sorts of manipulative corporate shit to lock people in to block churning.

      • Escaping the Orbit (Score:4, Interesting)

        by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Thursday April 11, 2019 @11:22PM (#58425214)

        People will swap streaming services upon a regular basis, as none of them will end up with sufficient content

        I agree with this statement, for a lot of services. HBO is exactly that way for me, it has some shows I like, but not enough to keep me around for more than a few months at a time...

        Netflix I would argue, now has enough content existing and being developed that they can accelerate out of that orbit of churn, to full time streaming for most people.

        Disney though, might have enough here to e a full-time subscribe. As mentioned elsewhere, they will have a LOT of Star Wars content including new content (the auxiliary stuff like the TV series have been much better than the movies in recent years). Then you have all the Marvel stuff. And all the Pixar stuff. And all the Disney cartoons and movies... that's a lot of mostly pretty good stuff (well OK Disney TV probably has a lot of filler but still). If you have kids (which notoriously like to watch things repeatedly) it's an instant must-have service. Even without kids if you are into one of the vectors they offer deep enough (Marvel/Star Wars) it's worthwhile and there's probably enough new stuff ongoing you'll keep it for a year...

        As an aside, Amazon lucks into yearly video service users because so many people have prime. If they ever broke that charge for video out I think they'd see a huge decline in year long subscribers.

      • In Australia, "STAN" (Local Netflix clone with a lot of reality TV junk, but a pretty great movie selection), got the rights to the disney catalogue, and honestly, it kept me entertained for all of about 2 weeks aand then nothing. I've seen all the marvel and star wars films, multiple times. The only Marvel TV shows worth watching belong to Netflix and got murdered by corporate suits. And theres a few decent non-genre films. But beyond that, there just isn't enough content to make a streaming service out of

      • Re:Will probably subscribe (Score:4, Insightful)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday April 12, 2019 @04:58AM (#58425790) Homepage Journal

        Disney knows it can rely on kids to keep parents subscribed for at least 10 years.

        • Disney knows it can rely on kids to keep parents subscribed for at least 10 years.

          There is that. of course.

          But Disney has close on to 100 years of independent production to draw on, not counting Fox. Marvel, Pixar and so on ---- and mountains of cash to license productions from other sources. Disney may focus on family-oriented entertainment. But we are long way out from the studio as it was in the 50's and 60's.

      • Re:Will probably subscribe (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Hodr ( 219920 ) on Friday April 12, 2019 @06:55AM (#58426060) Homepage

        People will swap streaming services upon a regular basis, as none of them will end up with sufficient content, ignoring all the filler crap no one watches, people will not pay for multiple services, they will simply swap on a quarterly or half yearly basis, depending upon how many they want to go with.

        You clearly underestimate both my laziness and my capacity to forget what I pay for things collectively.

      • I know some people that are so strapped for cash that they would probably jump from service to service. But most people I know would rather just let the subscription run than have to go through the hassle of stopping and starting services regularly. Personally I hate messing with that stuff, and every time I have to arrange billing online I'm thinking about what could go wrong and result in my CC information spread far and wide. So I buy stuff from Amazon even when it's not the cheapest. I think the last ti

      • Just wait. They will pull a Frontier and put some vague terms and conditions into the streaming "contract" agreement to put an early termination clause in there. A person wants to cancel six months later? Fine, they'll get a $1000 early termination fee. Go ahead, take them to court, spend all your lawyer money and your time fighting Disney on that.
      • > Churning streaming services will become the norm

        I'm sick of it, and the fucking games these people do, I'm bored of it.

        So, I found a "pirate iptv provider", downloaded his app, and payed the bloke $10 dollars to get access to 1000 movies, 500 tv shows, and the rest.

        The point is ... you try to play nice, you try to pay, and they screw you up with either limited access to content (if you're outside of the US), or they play these stupid games were you have to subscribe to 4 content providers.

        I

    • I already have copies at home of all three Star Wars movies, so I have no need for this subscription.

      • I recognize a bait when I see one, but I'll bite. I assume you refer to Episodes IV through VI?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          No, he means the good ones: the ones with Jar Jar Binks.

  • Star Wars? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alaskana98 ( 1509139 ) on Thursday April 11, 2019 @09:31PM (#58424984)
    "Some of the content subscribers will have access to includes all of the Star Wars films" - well this will definitely entice some folks.

  • DoA (Score:2, Insightful)

    by slashmydots ( 2189826 )
    Sorry, I have enough subscription services right now and the whole point of cancelling cable was to stop paying tons of money per month so I'll pass, as will everyone else who's not rich or unbelievably irresponsible with their money. Dead on arrival.

    • This is Disney we're talking about. They have an almost cult like following as strong as Apple's. No, not just kids. Grown ass men too, and not just because of star wars. So no, I disagree with your DoA assessment.

      At $6.99, I think it's priced great. I wasn't going to subscribe when they first announced this, but at that price, and all their back catalogue (Hello, ALL of The Simpsons!?), it'll be a great add if not just for my kids!

  • make Disney premium again and drop my bill $6/mo (Score:3)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Thursday April 11, 2019 @10:17PM (#58425096)

    make Disney premium again and drop my bill $6/mo and make it an choice.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It won't be available in my region anyway, and even if it was I doubt my smart TV or Kodi box will support it, so until they fix that it'll be the Pirate Bay for me.

  • All Star Wars eventually? (Score:3)

    by Ded Bob ( 67043 ) on Thursday April 11, 2019 @10:19PM (#58425102) Homepage

    Even everyone's favorite, the Star Wars Holiday Special?

  • linear Disney channel is ad free and we all pay for it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hawk ( 1151 )

      You mean the 24/7 infomercial for the Disney empire, which get's interrupted by 15-20 minute chunks of programming?

      hawk

  • I'm just going to leave this little thing (Score:5, Informative)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday April 11, 2019 @10:36PM (#58425134)
    right here... [recode.net]

  • Simpsons. (Score:3)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday April 11, 2019 @10:45PM (#58425156) Homepage Journal

    Forget Star Wars. The Simpsons alone will draw people in numbers.

  • Yet another media streaming service, fragmenting the media market and forcing people on limited budgets to choose, or more often a lot of people simply picking one and then obtaining their other media through sometimes less than legal channels.

  • Possible illegal behavior (Score:5, Interesting)

    by war4peace ( 1628283 ) on Friday April 12, 2019 @01:05AM (#58425356)

    From TFA:

    After the initial North American launch in the fourth quarter of 2019, the service will roll out to Western Europe and in Asia-Pacific regions starting in Q4 and into early 2020 and in Eastern Europe and Latin America starting at the end of 2020.

    The European Commission will most likely slam them with a heavy fine if they do this. The European Union is a single entity economically speaking, and treating Western Europe and Eastern Europe separately is a huge no-no.

    Valve is under pressure right now for allowing game price geotagging in the EU, together with other major game publishers. https://win.gg/news/977 [win.gg]
    As a person living in Eastern Europe (and a Star Wars fan), I am directly interested in how is this going to unfold.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Valve is under pressure for their regional price practice, and we dont know how that story will end yet.

      I am very sceptical that the EU would take action against Disney based on where and when they operate their business. It would be a frightening precedent as there are millions of companies in the EU that dont operate in the entire EU.

    • Is the EU really trying to be that anti-business? Do mom and pops have to open stores throughout the EU if they open one up in, say, Germany? Are they required to be online retailers? The EU is kind of being a little stupid.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tepples ( 727027 )

        Do mom and pops have to open stores throughout the EU if they open one up in, say, Germany? Are they required to be online retailers?

        As I understand the single market regulation, the intent was that if a business chooses to operate online in the EU, then it must participate in the digital single market. Disney could instead choose to operate a Western European counterpart to Disney+ as a DVD by mail service instead of streaming.

        I still don't understand how the digital single market expects copyright owners to comply with obligations under decades-long exclusive territorial distribution contracts that predate the digital single market.

      • Is the EU really trying to be that anti-business? Do mom and pops have to open stores throughout the EU if they open one up in, say, Germany? Are they required to be online retailers? The EU is kind of being a little stupid.

        I mean that's clearly not what they require, it's kindof mental to even ask. It's a price discrimination rule.

        "can't be charged a higher price when buying products or services in the EU just because of your nationality or country of residence."

        There is no requirement to operate over multiple countries, but if you do you have to offer the same prices to everybody, excluding delivery costs. Since delivery doesn't apply to streaming, then it's must just be the same price.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by psavo ( 162634 )

        Don't be daft. All they have to do to dodge this is a) have a separate IP holding company (done) b) separate streaming license holder (done) and just not buy IP rights for the region until they're ready to open the shop.

  • $6.99 FOR NOW (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Friday April 12, 2019 @01:17AM (#58425378) Journal
    First taste is cheap, people. Just like everyone else, they'll let you get all settled in, then start jacking up the price. 'Cord cutters', indeed.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I'd love to know what Disney and Netflix think about The Pirate Bay. How do they factor it into their pricing? Do they keep the monthly cost low enough to compete with it, or is it not a factor at all?

      • Re:$6.99 FOR NOW (Score:5, Insightful)

        by garcia ( 6573 ) on Friday April 12, 2019 @08:24AM (#58426336)

        I've been on Slashdot since 1996 or 1997 and I have gone through my phase of using any number of p2p software pieces for obtaining whatever media I preferred to watch; however, these ended when I became an adult who could easily afford any of these services.

        What do I do now that Disney isn't on my preferred streaming services? I either choose to pay for it or I don't and my kids don't watch it. But, even though I did it in the past, I *never* once consider torrents as an option for consuming this and, if I think this way, the vast majority of people in the world do as well.

        So, to answer your question, no, they don't consider it as as a factor.

        • I've been on Slashdot since 1996 or 1997 and I have gone through my phase of using any number of p2p software pieces for obtaining whatever media I preferred to watch; however, these ended when I became an adult who could easily afford any of these services.

          What do I do now that Disney isn't on my preferred streaming services? I either choose to pay for it or I don't and my kids don't watch it. But, even though I did it in the past, I *never* once consider torrents as an option for consuming this and, if I think this way, the vast majority of people in the world do as well.

          So, to answer your question, no, they don't consider it as as a factor.

          They should. I also used file sharing sites and stopped for the same reasons. Additionally for me it wasn't just economics, it was that they finally worked out how to deliver consistent quality timely content at a reasonable price that is easy to access.

          The problem now is with all these walled gardens, they are changing the deal. The hassle factor is going back up and content is becoming unavailable based on which subscriptions you do or don't have. I have already chosen not to have 10+ different subs

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          I've been on Slashdot since 1996 or 1997 and I have gone through my phase of using any number of p2p software pieces for obtaining whatever media I preferred to watch; however, these ended when I became an adult who could easily afford any of these services.

          ive been here since ~1998, AC always; am too now an adult, and can now afford whatever media i want.

          that said, pirated PC video games are still the best to this day. no drm, no internet required, not tied to a service, sometimes better performance, you can make backups via disk/flash drive, etc.

          pirated music is still the best too (aside from ripping it yourself).

          still the pirate's life for me, ahoy.

  • The $6.99 price probably won't even stand 12 months.

    Not even sure $9.99 will hold long. Their behavior in the past already shows they'd rather sell to 20% of the market at a much higher price.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hodr ( 219920 )

      Where is your example of this? Disney used to be a paid premium channel on cable. Now there are several Disney channels in the basic cable package. That shows a willingness to accept less from each sub in order to get a greater total profit. Literally the opposite of squeezing every drop out of a smaller segment of the market.

      • Look at their theme parks... for $60 you get a ticket.. for $200 you get to cut in line ahead of the people paying $60... and the way they treat their old movies. Repeatedly taking them out of circulation to artificially raise their value by creating artificial scarcity and then rereleasing them at higher prices.

        They'll probably have 2 tiers with 'really special content' being offered earlier to folks paying more.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geek ( 5680 )

      $19.99

      Fixed that for you

    • Me neither. But for $6.99 I will probably sign up. I already have Amazon and Netflix - plus cable TV (because I have too to get Internet). So I need another streaming fee like I need a hole my head.

      For $7 - I will probably splurge for the kids. If it goes up much I'll have to seriously consider which one to keep and which to drop. Does "Disney Only" have enough content to win that contest? I don't know.

  • Unless this service contain all of Disney's movies/shows/properties this won't be worth it.
  • The idea that Disney+ could be discounted bundled with Hulu is of interest. I couldn't care less about ESPN+, but do use Hulu regularly, particularly since I get HBO through it. I'm interested in some of the Star Wars stuff and hope some more mature TV shows might be spawned showing some grittiness of the galaxy (perhaps a show just about bounty hunters, or the Hutt crime cartels). Marvel TV shows have been more miss lately than hit for me (I liked Agents of Shield when it first came out, but the last tw
  • Soon there will be even more content spaced out over an additional service offering. With the other major studios to follow with their own subscriptions (if they haven't done so already). To say nothing about the inevitable price increases, which we all *know* are coming. Youtube TV announced a $10 per month bump yesterday. Netflix is going up again. At a $6.99 price point The Mouse is already under the market average. How long are they expected to leave money on the table?

    I cut the cord last year a
  • If, instead of every studio baking it's own platform with it's own fees and structure they all banded together, removed their content from Netflix as a block and had a unified platform for steaming all content (Warner, Disney, Universal, Paramount, Sony) they would put Netflix out of business within a few years. After that break it back up and do whatever, what they are doing now seems to shortsighted.

  • Disney has been keeping Gravity Falls unreleased for years. Will it appear on this service?

  • Too bad Disney sold the rights to Miramax. It would have been nice to have Miramax films included in this.

  • All of Disney+'s content will be available to download for offline viewing and will be available in 4K.

    Err what? Can I just sub for a month, download everything they have and unsub? What container and codec is the download in?

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