13 ms·

Disney: Bob Iger bets the company (and Hollywood's future) on streaming

77 points by spking 7y ago

grawprog 7y ago
>including all 30 seasons of The Simpsons; Never thought I'd see the day when a Disney service would air the Simpsons. The idea of the simpsons airing on the disney channel back in the day would have been ridiculous. Seems so strange to go from being considered one of the most notorious shows around to being carried by Disney. The very antithesis of what it was when it started. Not sure what that says more about though, Disney or the Simpsons.
- dmos62 7y ago
  To my understanding, it's widely considered that The Simpsons have not been a veritable satire (in the spirit of the first seasons) for the past 20+ years. With success it quickly became what it started out ridiculing; so Disney endorsing Simpsons is normal.
  - shantly 7y ago
    The Dead Homer Society's take on it is basically exactly that—the show became what it was satirizing. Throw in a little TV-embraces-criticism-and-makes-it-the-new-normal (cf. David Foster Wallace) and everything else got more like The Simpsons, too. It looks a little ranty at first glance but ends up being pretty damn thorough and convincing. By season 8 or 9 the show was transitioning away from its old self, and past that it's not really delivering the same thing it was in seasons 1-7 at all, so if you were really into that the later seasons may not scratch the same itch (or itchy the same scratchy?). https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/ https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/
    - grawprog 7y ago
      I'm not sure if it was that one or not, I tried looking through it and couldn't find it, but I remember there was a good comparison between the joke setup and execution of old style simpsons and the later seasons that really put the difference between the two into perspective. I just remember it summing up all the things I disliked about the new Simpsons in a single joke that I'd never really been able to notice in detail until it was laid out like that.
    - cortesoft 7y ago
      > TV-embraces-criticism-and-makes-it-the-new-normal That was the most chilling and realistic part of the black mirror episode from the first season... where the guy goes on this passionate rant against the reality show culture... and the reality show responds by saying how much they love that fire and passion, so they give him a reality show.
- smaili 7y ago
  I still remember growing up as a kid, my parents would constantly monitor the CRT to make sure I wasn't watching the Simpsons because it was "not for kids" :) I haven't been following much of the show but it could also be the writers toned down the content as the show progressed through the years to the point where Disney wouldn't mind airing it? It could also just be them recognizing the pull the Simpson has on viewers and they're using it as the initial bait to attract subscribers but have it pulled once they have enough customers? Who knows, but either way I do agree this combination was one I would've never imagined as a kid.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    It may be that the sway of the “Moral Majority” has lost its clout. When Ellen first came out as gay on her show it was a big deal in the 90s and Murphy Brown having a child out of wedlock was a talking point by the Vice President. Now even cartoons aimed at kids show same sex couples (I can’t remember the name of the cartoon) and Disney and most corporations are ignoring them - including protest about an interracial couple.
    - AJ007 7y ago
      You also have cartoons on Netflix and Hulu with full frontal nudity and graphic violence (decapitation, disembowelment, etc.) I think what happened was the kids who weren’t allowed to watch The Simpsons, grew up, and realized the entire thing was silly, and they are the ones with kids now.
    - bitwize 7y ago
      They've been displaced by a new moral majority. For example, the producers have decided to erase the Michael Jackson episode of The Simpsons from history. Now that the Right People are burning books, book burning is A-OK with the Simpsons crew.
      - bearcobra 7y ago
        The counter argument offered by the producers to this point is there’s a difference when the author(s) decide to make an edit. If you believe the accusations against Jackson it doesn’t seem unreasonable that living people may want to dissociate from him
- nabla9 7y ago
  Just wait until they buy pornhub.com :) Disney is not just Disney+. It's Disney+, ESPN+, Hulu, ABC and many other delivery channels and insane amount of franchise. They can merge or create more channels over time. Whatever maximizes the profit. They are even producing Black Mirror trough Endemol Shine (House of Tomorrow). Netflix just has the distribution rights.
- sosborn 7y ago
  I think says volumes about how our social norms have changed. Remember, today’s decision makers grew up on the Simpsons.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  The Simpsons was never really that controversial was it? It's fairly family-friendly. Didn't have any bad language, almost zero sexuality, zero nudity, any violence is very cartoon, its satire is pretty gentle, plot-lines are usually wholesome in the end.
  - jhbadger 7y ago
    It totally was controversial in the beginning. It was considered worse than South Park or Family Guy are today. George H.W. Bush (the father) even made a statement that the American family should be "more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons." ("The Waltons" was a series about a wholesome family in Virginia surviving the Great Depression)
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      > George H.W. Bush (the father) even made a statement that the American family should be "more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons." Yeah... I get that the plot is that the family in the show are chaotic. But that doesn't mean that the show itself is controversial, does it? It's not advocating for being like the Simpsons are.
      - wj 7y ago
        It's not now but is was 1990. The Simpsons and Married With Children were pretty much unlike anything else on TV at the time. The Cosby Show was pretty popular if that gives you a contrast.
      - jhbadger 7y ago
        I guess what people like Bush didn't like about it was that Homer was seen as stupid (and traditionally the father figure on shows was wise and could give good advice to his children) and that Bart was a troublemaker.
        chrisseaton 7y ago
        Father figures have been buffoons and families have been chaotic on TV for decades - the Flintstones back in the 60s for example.
- closetbch 7y ago
  you are comparing an entire group vs one show. it's not even a little surprising. you probably get a boner when someone says hell in a tv show
stefan_ 7y ago
> For those films that are released in theaters, Disney doesn't plan on changing any windows to bring them sooner to Disney+, which means there will be around a seven-month wait for titles like the upcoming Frozen 2 and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker to hit the service (Toy Story 4 should become available in early 2020) Betting the company. Thank god Iger found some time off from his book tour.
friedman23 7y ago
I think Disney+ will be more successful than anyone can imagine. I don't know how Netflix will survive when the competition of Disney+ and HBO Max will have 95% of the best tv shows and movies.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Netflix’s issue is not the quality of content - it’s their business model. They are borrowing billions to create content with the only way to recoup the cost is mostly by subscription revenue. Their initial rationale was that they were building a content library that would have value. But, they admitted during the last conference call that subscriber growth was slow expectations because they didn’t have any new big releases. No one is going to are about “House of Cards” in five years. Compare that to Disney’s library. People still care about Disney’s animated movies from the 30s and even adults are nostalgic about the 90s X-men animated TV show and the original Star Wars from the 70s. Besides, Disney makes billions from their content from theatrical releases, video on demand, network and cable TV, theme parks, toy sales, etc.
  - friedman23 7y ago
    >Netflix’s issue is not the quality of content - it’s their business model. They are borrowing billions to create content with the only way to recoup the cost is mostly by subscription revenue. Their initial rationale was that they were building a content library that would have value. But, they admitted during the last conference call that subscriber growth was slow expectations because they didn’t have any new big releases. No one is going to are about “House of Cards” in five years. I think you are contradicting yourself here. If the quality was good they wouldn't have mentioned not having big releases as being the reason why their subscriber growth was slow. >Compare that to Disney’s library. People still care about Disney’s animated movies from the 30s and even adults are nostalgic about the 90s X-men animated TV show and the original Star Wars from the 70s. I think you are arguing in favor of what I was saying? >Besides, Disney makes billions from their content from theatrical releases, video on demand, network and cable TV, theme parks, toy sales, etc. Yes, and for some strange reason Disney trades at 2x the market cap of netflix with 17x p/e while netflix trades at 88x p/e. Either Disney is severely undervalued or Netflix is severely overvalued (or both).
whyenot 7y ago
Amazon, Apple, Disney, HBO Max, Hulu, Peacock, ..., oh, and Netflix. How many monthly memberships are people going to want to pay for, especially when there is already a huge library of free content on YouTube? Interesting times...
- cobbzilla 7y ago
  Their customers are also paying for curation and safety.
- brogrammernot 7y ago
  Amazon doesn’t really count as it’s an added benefit of Prime. However, all of those you listed are cheaper than adding cable to my bill. I pay for Netflix, Hulu and YoutubeTV. It’s cheaper than adding cable to my bill & that’s just absurd to me.
  - aarpmcgee 7y ago
    Are you suggesting that it doesn’t count because you assume everyone has a Prime subscription?
    - Skunkleton 7y ago
      This isn't the point OP was making, but I don't think Amazon counts. Not because "everyone has prime", but because you can pay them extra money to add content to their platform. For example, you can pay to add British content, CBS, or HBO. Amazon is doing streaming right.
      - skinnymuch 7y ago
        I don’t think that’s a good reason. HBO will likely not be an add-on in near future. Hulu allows you to add Showtime too. CBS or Showtime have a good chance of not remaining with both products. Once CBS merges with Viacom [again]. Showtime and CBS’s new parent company will have to decide what to do about their streaming future. Edit: Hulu has add-one for HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, and Starz. Hulu obviously counts so then Amazon should count too.
ravenstine 7y ago
While his position is [partly] accurate, it's not exactly revelatory. People, notably internet pirates, were saying this 20 years ago. People are going to get fed up if they've got to pay for dozens of streaming services to get all the shows that they want. On top of that, a lot of these platforms are still shoving ads in our faces. If streaming manages to become worse than cable, people might just spend less time watching all that crap... which is a good thing anyway.
- RoyTyrell 7y ago
  > People are going to get fed up if they've got to pay for dozens of streaming services to get all the shows that they wa I agree. You start paying $70 for internet, $15 to Netflix, $15 to Disney, $10 to Hulu and really you're back to where you were with cable. I think having a couple offerings in the universe is great for competition reasons, but I will not spend the equivalent of a cable bill to get most of what I want to watch from mutually exclusive services. I'm not saying I'll pirate the shows I can't get, but it certainly makes a good case for that.
  - shard972 7y ago
    The difference is now you have a lot more content being developed which is now opening up spaces for voices that haven't been typically heard in mainstream hollywood. Complaining about a few $ here and there seems a bit greedy.
  - hkmurakami 7y ago
    At least it’s video on demand now. I still can’t even watch time delayed sporting events on xfinity’s atreaming thing.
  - rgoulter 7y ago
    If there are only a couple of different offerings, it makes sense to think "I'm going to subscribe to 1-3 of these every month". I think with a more fragmented streaming services, it's easier to get into the mindset of "Which shows do I want to watch? I want to watch these shows in 2-3 months by subscribing to these". PITA compared to having one or two streaming services which have almost everything; but, cheaper than "subscribe just in case there's something to watch". I don't mind watching shows way after they release, though.
nirav72 7y ago
isn't that inevitable? physical media has be dying for a decade now. streaming was something that was assumed to be on the horizon since early days of the consumer internet.
gatherhunterer 7y ago
“Entertainment Company Releases Content on Well-Established Medium” If they keep this up people might suspect that they want people to watch that content and pay for it. Maybe next the Hollywood Reporter will break the story on how they “bet it all” on theatrical releases, network television, VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray and other things that people pay to watch. Bob Iger definitely knows how to buy good press. Hollywood Reporter is owned by Guggenheim partners and has deep ties with Disney, including acting as an advisor to the Disney-Fox acquisition.
- scarface74 7y ago
  It’s not easy for a company to give up short term profits like licensing content to other providers, start a money losing service that may take years to make up the difference. Business have failed to adapt to changing technology for decades. That is the entire thesis of the “Innovator’s Dilemma”. He could have not taken the risk, retired with millions and let the next CEO figure it out.
  - kjksf 7y ago
    While late is better than never, Disney is too little too late. I'm not saying they will fail. Of established players they are the strongest and making the boldest moves so they have a chance at being a no 2. But they launch when Netflix has 150 million subscribers. They almost saturated the US market and are quickly devouring international. Taking market share from a dominant competitor is almost impossible. If Bob Iger wasn't asleep at the wheel, just like the rest of the industry, Disney would have launched a competitor when Netflix had 10 million US-only customers. They had a chance then but not now, competing against Netflix's 150 million subscribers and asymmetrical warfare from Amazon.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Disney’s definition of success and Netflix’s definition of success is completely different. Disney doesn’t have to depend on subscription revenue to fund its streaming content. It’s already made money on most of its content by the time it gets to Disney+. It’s just an additional revenue stream. Netflix lives or dies by being able to create or license content at one price and sell it via subscription revenue at a higher price - it has never been able to do that. It gets it more debt every year trying to keep up. In the words of Steve Jobs related to Dropbox. Streaming services are now a feature not a product.
wolco 7y ago
I'm surprised by how little content will be offered for the price point that will increase shortly. The Simpsons and a new star wars show plus 500 movie titles. Max 50 titles by 2024. People may pick it up to try it but if there is nothing to keep them watching many will drop them. Surprised they are only spending a billion in new content per year and spending 150 million for 10 star wars episodes. Surprised they are going in-house for the most part. The level of quality they are demanding is high. High movie ticket prices use to cover those costs and generate record profits. Under this new model they will start losing money until they reach peak subscriber if those targets are slower than expected that will put pressure to reduce the amount of new content and live off of their back catalogue.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Disney has to wait for a lot of content deals to expire before they can bring more to Disney+
- paganel 7y ago
  Maybe people with kids will pick it up? Which, granted, it's a pretty big market, but even so I think you are correct on your assessment when it comes to the very few titles they'll have available. And to be honest I don't know how much they'll be able to milk the Star Wars brand, it starts looking very, very stale. Even Pixar has started losing a big part of its attractiveness since it has been acquired by Disney, which I didn't think possible at the time of the acquisition.
  - seanalltogether 7y ago
    My daughter just started getting into Winnie the Pooh shorts and movies, which we're happy to let her watch and rewatch and rewatch, mostly because they don't annoy us. I have no doubt we'll be buying in to disney+ for her to have access to higher quality cartoons.
- seganddr 7y ago
  The Mandelorian is only the first Star Wars series. There's another based on Cassian Andor (from Rogue One, Diego Luna's character) and Obi Wan with Ewan McGreggor. I am excited for all of them!
phkahler 7y ago
Dear Disney. Instead of streaming, why not build a nationwide Disney network? 3-6 Subchannels of Disney 24/7. I'll watch that with my kids, ads and all. But were not paying for your streaming stuff.
- LeifCarrotson 7y ago
  What? You'd show ads to your kids? And would watch on Disney's schedule, not on demand? You can do your thing, but that sounds like exactly the opposite of what I want.
jimueller 7y ago
Wow, such a visionary in 2019.
z3t4 7y ago
I think something like Steam store would work better for movies, series, even live events. People will hoard.
cryptofits 7y ago
I really used to be the biggest Netflix fan but their OC is really lacking. And they do very little OC action outside their cartoons. Really glad I bought in early on Disney+ and they are building something so big at a cheaper price point. Even before this report I was excited by the whole network, and really excited for their OC.

77 points by spking 7y ago

>including all 30 seasons of The Simpsons; Never thought I'd see the day when a Disney service would air the Simpsons. The idea of the simpsons airing on the disney channel back in the day would have been ridiculous. Seems so strange to go from being considered one of the most notorious shows around to being carried by Disney. The very antithesis of what it was when it started. Not sure what that says more about though, Disney or the Simpsons.

dmos62 7y ago
To my understanding, it's widely considered that The Simpsons have not been a veritable satire (in the spirit of the first seasons) for the past 20+ years. With success it quickly became what it started out ridiculing; so Disney endorsing Simpsons is normal.
- shantly 7y ago
  The Dead Homer Society's take on it is basically exactly that—the show became what it was satirizing. Throw in a little TV-embraces-criticism-and-makes-it-the-new-normal (cf. David Foster Wallace) and everything else got more like The Simpsons, too. It looks a little ranty at first glance but ends up being pretty damn thorough and convincing. By season 8 or 9 the show was transitioning away from its old self, and past that it's not really delivering the same thing it was in seasons 1-7 at all, so if you were really into that the later seasons may not scratch the same itch (or itchy the same scratchy?). https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/ https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/
  - grawprog 7y ago
    I'm not sure if it was that one or not, I tried looking through it and couldn't find it, but I remember there was a good comparison between the joke setup and execution of old style simpsons and the later seasons that really put the difference between the two into perspective. I just remember it summing up all the things I disliked about the new Simpsons in a single joke that I'd never really been able to notice in detail until it was laid out like that.
  - cortesoft 7y ago
    > TV-embraces-criticism-and-makes-it-the-new-normal That was the most chilling and realistic part of the black mirror episode from the first season... where the guy goes on this passionate rant against the reality show culture... and the reality show responds by saying how much they love that fire and passion, so they give him a reality show.
smaili 7y ago
I still remember growing up as a kid, my parents would constantly monitor the CRT to make sure I wasn't watching the Simpsons because it was "not for kids" :) I haven't been following much of the show but it could also be the writers toned down the content as the show progressed through the years to the point where Disney wouldn't mind airing it? It could also just be them recognizing the pull the Simpson has on viewers and they're using it as the initial bait to attract subscribers but have it pulled once they have enough customers? Who knows, but either way I do agree this combination was one I would've never imagined as a kid.
- scarface74 7y ago
  It may be that the sway of the “Moral Majority” has lost its clout. When Ellen first came out as gay on her show it was a big deal in the 90s and Murphy Brown having a child out of wedlock was a talking point by the Vice President. Now even cartoons aimed at kids show same sex couples (I can’t remember the name of the cartoon) and Disney and most corporations are ignoring them - including protest about an interracial couple.
  - AJ007 7y ago
    You also have cartoons on Netflix and Hulu with full frontal nudity and graphic violence (decapitation, disembowelment, etc.) I think what happened was the kids who weren’t allowed to watch The Simpsons, grew up, and realized the entire thing was silly, and they are the ones with kids now.
  - bitwize 7y ago
    They've been displaced by a new moral majority. For example, the producers have decided to erase the Michael Jackson episode of The Simpsons from history. Now that the Right People are burning books, book burning is A-OK with the Simpsons crew.
    - bearcobra 7y ago
      The counter argument offered by the producers to this point is there’s a difference when the author(s) decide to make an edit. If you believe the accusations against Jackson it doesn’t seem unreasonable that living people may want to dissociate from him
nabla9 7y ago
Just wait until they buy pornhub.com :) Disney is not just Disney+. It's Disney+, ESPN+, Hulu, ABC and many other delivery channels and insane amount of franchise. They can merge or create more channels over time. Whatever maximizes the profit. They are even producing Black Mirror trough Endemol Shine (House of Tomorrow). Netflix just has the distribution rights.
sosborn 7y ago
I think says volumes about how our social norms have changed. Remember, today’s decision makers grew up on the Simpsons.
chrisseaton 7y ago
The Simpsons was never really that controversial was it? It's fairly family-friendly. Didn't have any bad language, almost zero sexuality, zero nudity, any violence is very cartoon, its satire is pretty gentle, plot-lines are usually wholesome in the end.
- jhbadger 7y ago
  It totally was controversial in the beginning. It was considered worse than South Park or Family Guy are today. George H.W. Bush (the father) even made a statement that the American family should be "more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons." ("The Waltons" was a series about a wholesome family in Virginia surviving the Great Depression)
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > George H.W. Bush (the father) even made a statement that the American family should be "more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons." Yeah... I get that the plot is that the family in the show are chaotic. But that doesn't mean that the show itself is controversial, does it? It's not advocating for being like the Simpsons are.
    - wj 7y ago
      It's not now but is was 1990. The Simpsons and Married With Children were pretty much unlike anything else on TV at the time. The Cosby Show was pretty popular if that gives you a contrast.
    - jhbadger 7y ago
      I guess what people like Bush didn't like about it was that Homer was seen as stupid (and traditionally the father figure on shows was wise and could give good advice to his children) and that Bart was a troublemaker.
      - chrisseaton 7y ago
        Father figures have been buffoons and families have been chaotic on TV for decades - the Flintstones back in the 60s for example.
closetbch 7y ago
you are comparing an entire group vs one show. it's not even a little surprising. you probably get a boner when someone says hell in a tv show

stefan_ 7y ago

> For those films that are released in theaters, Disney doesn't plan on changing any windows to bring them sooner to Disney+, which means there will be around a seven-month wait for titles like the upcoming Frozen 2 and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker to hit the service (Toy Story 4 should become available in early 2020) Betting the company. Thank god Iger found some time off from his book tour.

friedman23 7y ago

I think Disney+ will be more successful than anyone can imagine. I don't know how Netflix will survive when the competition of Disney+ and HBO Max will have 95% of the best tv shows and movies.

scarface74 7y ago
Netflix’s issue is not the quality of content - it’s their business model. They are borrowing billions to create content with the only way to recoup the cost is mostly by subscription revenue. Their initial rationale was that they were building a content library that would have value. But, they admitted during the last conference call that subscriber growth was slow expectations because they didn’t have any new big releases. No one is going to are about “House of Cards” in five years. Compare that to Disney’s library. People still care about Disney’s animated movies from the 30s and even adults are nostalgic about the 90s X-men animated TV show and the original Star Wars from the 70s. Besides, Disney makes billions from their content from theatrical releases, video on demand, network and cable TV, theme parks, toy sales, etc.
- friedman23 7y ago
  >Netflix’s issue is not the quality of content - it’s their business model. They are borrowing billions to create content with the only way to recoup the cost is mostly by subscription revenue. Their initial rationale was that they were building a content library that would have value. But, they admitted during the last conference call that subscriber growth was slow expectations because they didn’t have any new big releases. No one is going to are about “House of Cards” in five years. I think you are contradicting yourself here. If the quality was good they wouldn't have mentioned not having big releases as being the reason why their subscriber growth was slow. >Compare that to Disney’s library. People still care about Disney’s animated movies from the 30s and even adults are nostalgic about the 90s X-men animated TV show and the original Star Wars from the 70s. I think you are arguing in favor of what I was saying? >Besides, Disney makes billions from their content from theatrical releases, video on demand, network and cable TV, theme parks, toy sales, etc. Yes, and for some strange reason Disney trades at 2x the market cap of netflix with 17x p/e while netflix trades at 88x p/e. Either Disney is severely undervalued or Netflix is severely overvalued (or both).

whyenot 7y ago

Amazon, Apple, Disney, HBO Max, Hulu, Peacock, ..., oh, and Netflix. How many monthly memberships are people going to want to pay for, especially when there is already a huge library of free content on YouTube? Interesting times...

cobbzilla 7y ago
Their customers are also paying for curation and safety.
brogrammernot 7y ago
Amazon doesn’t really count as it’s an added benefit of Prime. However, all of those you listed are cheaper than adding cable to my bill. I pay for Netflix, Hulu and YoutubeTV. It’s cheaper than adding cable to my bill & that’s just absurd to me.
- aarpmcgee 7y ago
  Are you suggesting that it doesn’t count because you assume everyone has a Prime subscription?
  - Skunkleton 7y ago
    This isn't the point OP was making, but I don't think Amazon counts. Not because "everyone has prime", but because you can pay them extra money to add content to their platform. For example, you can pay to add British content, CBS, or HBO. Amazon is doing streaming right.
    - skinnymuch 7y ago
      I don’t think that’s a good reason. HBO will likely not be an add-on in near future. Hulu allows you to add Showtime too. CBS or Showtime have a good chance of not remaining with both products. Once CBS merges with Viacom [again]. Showtime and CBS’s new parent company will have to decide what to do about their streaming future. Edit: Hulu has add-one for HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, and Starz. Hulu obviously counts so then Amazon should count too.

ravenstine 7y ago

While his position is [partly] accurate, it's not exactly revelatory. People, notably internet pirates, were saying this 20 years ago. People are going to get fed up if they've got to pay for dozens of streaming services to get all the shows that they want. On top of that, a lot of these platforms are still shoving ads in our faces. If streaming manages to become worse than cable, people might just spend less time watching all that crap... which is a good thing anyway.

RoyTyrell 7y ago
> People are going to get fed up if they've got to pay for dozens of streaming services to get all the shows that they wa I agree. You start paying $70 for internet, $15 to Netflix, $15 to Disney, $10 to Hulu and really you're back to where you were with cable. I think having a couple offerings in the universe is great for competition reasons, but I will not spend the equivalent of a cable bill to get most of what I want to watch from mutually exclusive services. I'm not saying I'll pirate the shows I can't get, but it certainly makes a good case for that.
- shard972 7y ago
  The difference is now you have a lot more content being developed which is now opening up spaces for voices that haven't been typically heard in mainstream hollywood. Complaining about a few $ here and there seems a bit greedy.
- hkmurakami 7y ago
  At least it’s video on demand now. I still can’t even watch time delayed sporting events on xfinity’s atreaming thing.
- rgoulter 7y ago
  If there are only a couple of different offerings, it makes sense to think "I'm going to subscribe to 1-3 of these every month". I think with a more fragmented streaming services, it's easier to get into the mindset of "Which shows do I want to watch? I want to watch these shows in 2-3 months by subscribing to these". PITA compared to having one or two streaming services which have almost everything; but, cheaper than "subscribe just in case there's something to watch". I don't mind watching shows way after they release, though.

nirav72 7y ago

isn't that inevitable? physical media has be dying for a decade now. streaming was something that was assumed to be on the horizon since early days of the consumer internet.

gatherhunterer 7y ago

“Entertainment Company Releases Content on Well-Established Medium” If they keep this up people might suspect that they want people to watch that content and pay for it. Maybe next the Hollywood Reporter will break the story on how they “bet it all” on theatrical releases, network television, VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray and other things that people pay to watch. Bob Iger definitely knows how to buy good press. Hollywood Reporter is owned by Guggenheim partners and has deep ties with Disney, including acting as an advisor to the Disney-Fox acquisition.

scarface74 7y ago
It’s not easy for a company to give up short term profits like licensing content to other providers, start a money losing service that may take years to make up the difference. Business have failed to adapt to changing technology for decades. That is the entire thesis of the “Innovator’s Dilemma”. He could have not taken the risk, retired with millions and let the next CEO figure it out.
- kjksf 7y ago
  While late is better than never, Disney is too little too late. I'm not saying they will fail. Of established players they are the strongest and making the boldest moves so they have a chance at being a no 2. But they launch when Netflix has 150 million subscribers. They almost saturated the US market and are quickly devouring international. Taking market share from a dominant competitor is almost impossible. If Bob Iger wasn't asleep at the wheel, just like the rest of the industry, Disney would have launched a competitor when Netflix had 10 million US-only customers. They had a chance then but not now, competing against Netflix's 150 million subscribers and asymmetrical warfare from Amazon.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Disney’s definition of success and Netflix’s definition of success is completely different. Disney doesn’t have to depend on subscription revenue to fund its streaming content. It’s already made money on most of its content by the time it gets to Disney+. It’s just an additional revenue stream. Netflix lives or dies by being able to create or license content at one price and sell it via subscription revenue at a higher price - it has never been able to do that. It gets it more debt every year trying to keep up. In the words of Steve Jobs related to Dropbox. Streaming services are now a feature not a product.

wolco 7y ago

I'm surprised by how little content will be offered for the price point that will increase shortly. The Simpsons and a new star wars show plus 500 movie titles. Max 50 titles by 2024. People may pick it up to try it but if there is nothing to keep them watching many will drop them. Surprised they are only spending a billion in new content per year and spending 150 million for 10 star wars episodes. Surprised they are going in-house for the most part. The level of quality they are demanding is high. High movie ticket prices use to cover those costs and generate record profits. Under this new model they will start losing money until they reach peak subscriber if those targets are slower than expected that will put pressure to reduce the amount of new content and live off of their back catalogue.

scarface74 7y ago
Disney has to wait for a lot of content deals to expire before they can bring more to Disney+
paganel 7y ago
Maybe people with kids will pick it up? Which, granted, it's a pretty big market, but even so I think you are correct on your assessment when it comes to the very few titles they'll have available. And to be honest I don't know how much they'll be able to milk the Star Wars brand, it starts looking very, very stale. Even Pixar has started losing a big part of its attractiveness since it has been acquired by Disney, which I didn't think possible at the time of the acquisition.
- seanalltogether 7y ago
  My daughter just started getting into Winnie the Pooh shorts and movies, which we're happy to let her watch and rewatch and rewatch, mostly because they don't annoy us. I have no doubt we'll be buying in to disney+ for her to have access to higher quality cartoons.
seganddr 7y ago
The Mandelorian is only the first Star Wars series. There's another based on Cassian Andor (from Rogue One, Diego Luna's character) and Obi Wan with Ewan McGreggor. I am excited for all of them!

phkahler 7y ago

Dear Disney. Instead of streaming, why not build a nationwide Disney network? 3-6 Subchannels of Disney 24/7. I'll watch that with my kids, ads and all. But were not paying for your streaming stuff.

LeifCarrotson 7y ago
What? You'd show ads to your kids? And would watch on Disney's schedule, not on demand? You can do your thing, but that sounds like exactly the opposite of what I want.

jimueller 7y ago

Wow, such a visionary in 2019.

z3t4 7y ago

I think something like Steam store would work better for movies, series, even live events. People will hoard.

cryptofits 7y ago

I really used to be the biggest Netflix fan but their OC is really lacking. And they do very little OC action outside their cartoons. Really glad I bought in early on Disney+ and they are building something so big at a cheaper price point. Even before this report I was excited by the whole network, and really excited for their OC.