Disney To Pull Its Movies From Netflix and Start Its Own Streaming Service (theverge.com)

Disney announced today that it will end its distribution deal with Netflix and launch its own streaming service in 2019. "The move is a real blow to Netflix, which secured a valuable streaming deal with Disney back in 2012 -- before streaming had really taken off," reports The Verge. "The deal only kicked into effect last year, so Netflix is barely seeing any benefit here." From the report: Netflix won't lose its Disney movies right away. Disney says it plans to cut Netflix off starting with the studio's 2019 films, and Netflix says it'll be able to keep all the Disney movies it gets through the end of that year. That means Netflix should be able to stream the next two Star Wars movies, but it'll miss out on the new trilogy's final installment. "We continue to do business with the Walt Disney Company on many fronts, including our ongoing deal with Marvel TV," said a spokesperson for Netflix. Disney's streaming service will be built off technology from BAMTech, the MLB-founded video streaming platform. Disney was already a major investor in BAMTech, and today it's making an even bigger investment -- of $1.58 billion -- giving it a 75 percent stake in the company. The acquisition still requires regulatory approval. The Disney-branded streaming service will be the "exclusive home in the U.S. for subscription-video-on-demand viewing," and will kick off with films including Toy Story 4 and the sequel to Frozen. "Original movies, TV shows, [and] short-form content" will be added to the service, and it'll be filled out with older movies from Disney and Pixar's catalog and shows from Disney's TV channels. The report also notes Disney plans to launch a streaming service exclusively for ESPN, targeted for launch early next year. "Disney is promising about '10,000 live regional, national, and international games and events a year,' with individual sports packages available as well," reports The Verge.

Comments

Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[hord]

When do the other movie studios pull their licensing and NetFlix only has original content? And is the Disney service going to be as good or better than the NetFlix experience?

Full Disclaimer: I'm glad Bambi's mom died.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[rahvin112]

This is Hulu 2.0.

Every couple years the distributors try to setup their own streaming company. And every few years said new streaming company goes under because the rights holders make stupid decisions and the streaming doesn't work. Expect it to fail just like all the things before it.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[technomom]

How much live sports does Hulu have to offer? ESPN + BAMTech has a lot. That plus the Disney catalog, plus Star Wars, plus Marvel gives them a pretty good start. Also, if you think Hulu has failed, you might want to look again. They are having a very good year. They have arguably the best live TV service plus a couple of hits with The Handmaid's Tale and 11-17-63.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Austerity Empowers]

The question is what will all these independent streaming companies do when it becomes clear we're not going to pay monthly fees for 10 different companies each of which has one or two shows we care about and 99% junk.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[ShanghaiBill]

we're not going to pay monthly fees for 10 different companies

With Amazon you just pay for each movie. Youtube also has a la carte movies with no recurring membership fee. These new services could do the same.

 

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Daemonik]

One, of all the networks, Disney is perhaps the only one with a catalog full enough to actually present a good competitor to Netflix.

Two, I think this is a reaction to Netflix buying up Millarworld.

Overnight Netflix went from being a popular platform for delivering Disney product to a direct competitor to Disney's very profitable Marvel IP. It was inevitable, really, Netflix is tired of being Hollywood's bitch over licensing properties and they've been very proactive about fixing that, I wouldn't be surprised if at some point they don't buy out an actual studio. Regardless, Disney probably felt distinctly uncomfortable with the move, and knowing they do have a very large catalog of desirable properties felt safe launching their own service.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Applehu Akbar]

This is Hulu 2.0.

Every couple years the distributors try to setup their own streaming company. And every few years said new streaming company goes under because the rights holders make stupid decisions and the streaming doesn't work. Expect it to fail just like all the things before it.

This is how, one by one, we discover the magic of Kodi.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[mjwx]

This is Hulu 2.0.

Every couple years the distributors try to setup their own streaming company. And every few years said new streaming company goes under because the rights holders make stupid decisions and the streaming doesn't work. Expect it to fail just like all the things before it.

As much as I agree with that point, if anyone is going to be able to do it it'll be Disney. They're specialists at pacifying the most unruly consumer group that has ever dared to appear at a Target... Children. All Disney have to do is price themselves at $1 less that the pain threshold of parents with kids.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Gavagai80]

People have been clamoring for a la carte cable channel subscriptions. Now we've got it in the form of a streaming service for each channel.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[lucm]

Wait it's about to get better, thanks to Amazon and their great idea of digital channels. They already sell their own hardware. Soon there's going to be bundles. They're just cloudifying the cable company.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Falos]

Let me check here on our quarterly growth statement: OK, it says "lol we don't give a fuck not our problem".

Do the companies realize we flocked to netflix so long ago because it DID solve the problem?

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[youngone]

I think rahvin112 might be arguing that Disney might have the content, but they won't get the user experience right.
I suspect he might be correct too. They will make a hash of it by introducing some stupid DRM nonsense, or proprietary codec or something along those lines.
I won't hold my breathe until it is available in my country, because apparently it is better to have fewer customers that to license the rights to stuff all over the world.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as I agree with that point, if anyone is going to be able to do it it'll be Disney. They're specialists at pacifying the most unruly consumer group that has ever dared to appear at a Target... Children. All Disney have to do is price themselves at $1 less that the pain threshold of parents with kids.

Meh. I used to collect Disney movies, but haven't touched those tapes/dvds in a long time. The bottom line is Japanese Animation is better. Sure there is some that is worse, but there is so much of it, there is bound to be way more that is better. I haven't kept up with that lately either, but realistically when you compare something fun like the 12 kingdoms, the Fate series, Fushigi Yugi, Simoun, Crest of the Stars (one of my favorites), Slayers, Evangelion, Full Metal Panic, Tenchi Muyo, Stellvia, Cross Game, Princess Nine, Scrapped Princess, etc to the crap that Disney makes, well there is no comparison.

Let them take their stuff and their stupid death plus 90 years copyrights and choke on it. I'll never pay disney another dime.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[sims 2]

Sure but 1 cost as much or more as a whole month's subscription. Guardians of the galaxy 2 for example costs more than 2 months of prime video.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[cayenne8]

Other thing is....I'm NOT terribly inclined to add any more streaming services to my list of things I pay for monthly.

I have Netflix.

I have Amazon Prime (not just for video, but lots of stuff for the $).

When I cut the cord, I got Playstation VUE...that covers my "cable" channels, news, sports (I only really like watching college football on ESPNs)....

I also have tivo and antenna for local HD OTA content...no monthly fees there, but just with that and the 3 streaming services I mentioned, it would have to be something VERY compelling for me to add yet another streaming service.

I have more content than I need at this time....WTF would I add Disney? (or any other service out there).

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Bite The Pillow]

I plead ignorance. I blame Netflix for most of the fragmentation, for going original and teaching the originators, like HBO, that originators can stream.

I had netflix, have amazon, and joined late.

I'd like to know who to blame. I know who to blame for reality TV, and I'd love to add to my knowledge store.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[gfxguy]

When you need to pay $15 bucks each for twenty different services, I stop wasting time watching TV.

And for the record - they got Bambi's mom, but they're going to pay.... deerly. (Disney's live action Bambi movie).

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[gfxguy]

WTF would I add Disney? (or any other service out there).

Agree - I'm in a similar situation. Luckily my kids don't give a crap about Disney anymore (both late teens). But if you had young kids...

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[gfxguy]

And Disney's got the ABC content, and whatever it is they're calling the family channel now (I cut the cord, so I know they changed it, but can't remember to what). They've also got ESPN, which they'll do live sports with the same way HULU's got some live content now.... oh, and Marvel and Star Wars movies. Oh well. I would rather live without than to subscribe to a separate Disney service.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[dave4]

I suggest a rotary service that switches every month, so you can alternate between all the providers.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Paradise Pete]

new streaming company goes under because the rights holders make stupid decisions and the streaming doesn't work.

BAMTech is very good at streaming. If this fails it won't be because of that. Lots of other ways to go wrong, of course.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[SeaFox]

This is Hulu 2.0.

Funny your mention them. Because I could have sworn Disney just got into a deal with Hulu.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Altrag]

Disney owns a lot more than cartoons about princesses. As others have noted already, Star Wars and the Marvel movies come to mind. I'm sure your late teens are kind of interested in those (especially if they're boys, though there's no shortage of girls who like action movies either.) They own the distribution rights to many (maybe all?) of the Studio Ghibli movies in the US. And thousands upon thousands of other titles you probably wouldn't even think of as being Disney properties (R-rated movies and the like.)
  Disney is huge. If you're wanting to stay legitimate, you'd be losing a large chunk of culture if you avoided them.

Of course what they'll find is that few people are capable of paying for every single distributor's own walled-garden crappy site and all the piracy reduction that trended with the rise of Netflix' online service will start spiking upward again. Not that the media companies will acknowledge the correlation of course (at least not publicly) because why would you need more than just their service and their service is (individually) reasonably priced right?

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Rakarra]

People have been clamoring for a la carte cable channel subscriptions. Now we've got it in the form of a streaming service for each channel.

What they were clamoring for was "I don't want X channels for Y dollars per month, I want X/10 channels for Y/10 dollars."

So now with all these pay streaming services they will pay 3x the amount they used to for the same TV watching. Yay, progress.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Altrag]

Its the other way around. Netflix started doing originals because the other distributors were either unwilling to play ball at all, or were asking for licensing fees that Netflix was unwilling or unable to pay.

Now those of you in the US might not see it that way, because the original problems were (mostly) not US-centric -- it started during the time that Netflix was trying to grown their global markets and US-based distributors were asking for stupid things like equal (or greater) licensing costs for a show coming to Canada as they charge for it in the US -- even though Canada has 1/10 the population and therefore generating 1/10 the revenue (give or take depending on the exchange rate at the time.)

Though to some extent you're right. Netflix starts offering their originals -- which were often significantly better than much of the crud the other producers were offering (especially their early shows/seasons) -- and therefore Netflix felt less inclined to pay high rates for effectively inferior shows and therefore lost more catalog as companies took their balls and went home rather than lowering their licensing feed, and 'round and 'round we go.

Who knows where this will settle. Hulu always had some market share even before this whole mess started crumbling. Amazon's picked up a little bit. HBO's got a little bit that will probably die out quickly after the Game of Thrones final episode.. almost nobody else who's tried to build a streaming service to compete with Netflix but in their own walled garden has succeeded to any real extent.

Netflix runs on practically everything, usually works pretty good (though as with most internet services each new iteration of their UI seems to remove useful features in a race to appeal to the dumbest people possible.) But most importantly, they still have a huge catalog -- especially if you're willing to watch shows not produced in the US. And at the end of the day, beyond a few extremely good shows (such as GoT,) variety is the biggest selling point, which is why none of the walled gardens will ever take off. Hulu and Amazon have at least a chance specifically because, like Netflix, they're a clearinghouse for anyone who's willing to license content to them at a reasonable price rather than being locked into a single studio's works.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Altrag]

I'm pretty sure there's a difference between paying $1-2 per channel per month, and paying $10-20 per "channel" per month. Someone paying $150 for cable might be happy to get their bill to drop to $100 by only subscribing to the channels they care about.. but they're not going to be happy if the bill went up to $1000 for them to go a la carte.

That's not even counting the paying multiple entities aspect one of the other replies mentions.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Altrag]

My suspicion is that they do realize Netflix solved a problem, but they're not looking at the right problem because Netflix solved at least two:

1) A good amount of content that people wanted.
2) Lots of content that people didn't care about (or didn't know they cared about until they tried it,) but gave them something to put on when they were bored.

All of these companies think we'll happily pony up $10, $15, maybe $20 per month to each of them in order to continue solving problem #1. But that's not the real problem that Netflix solved. Problem #1 is already solved sufficiently well by piracy. Netflix addressing it as well makes for good press, but doesn't really sway subscribers to any large extent.

Netflix' big selling point is that they solved #2. None of the walled garden approaches will fix that since almost by definition, they will have small content libraries. To some extent cable solves #2 as well, but since 90% of the cable channels are useless filler, there's many times where there's plenty on but absolutely none of it is worth watching -- that is, the minute-by-minute "library" on cable is also extremely limited. (And of course with Netflix, you aren't getting blasted with commercials on top of your monthly payment, though that's a smaller issue in the grand scheme of things as most people are well adjusted to ignoring commercials by now.)

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[jellomizer]

The problem is the average viewer really doesn't care who made the show or movie, but wants to watch the movie. A bunch of streaming services for every studio is going to be prohibitively expensive on the end user, who may want the service for 1 or 2 shows.
Then will the streaming service be offered on the device of their choice. I watch most of my Netflix and Hulu on my Wii-U but HBO and CBS doesn't offer it for that device as the Wii-U isn't popular.

If you are going to compete with Netflix at least try to get more content and not just a path to show yours because you have a higher profit margin. Because I expect that higher margin will be at the expense in overall revenue.

Re: Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that not kid friendly? It's wrong to coddle children and keep them away from the good things in life (blood, boobies, giant fighting robots, etc).

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[InfiniteBlaze]

Their good performance is due in large part to the older audience that wants their older content and is willing to tolerate ads. I tried their paid service and was still subjected to ads. I will not use Hulu, and I think a lot of other GenX, GenY, 90's kids, and millennials will feel the same way. This move by Disney is only going to drive piracy.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[JaredOfEuropa]

You'd hope that these services (Netflix included) would start offering pay-per-view options so that you can watch the 1 or 2 shows you're interested in at a reasonable price. But of course these companies are very keen to suck you into a monthly plan, so even if they offer pay-per-view at all, I am sure that they'll leave out part of the offering, especially popular original content. Or they'll price it unreasonably high.

Re: Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[evilRhino]

It's actually a choice for the consumer to keep multiple subscriptions. I plan on only keeping a subscription active if I am currently watching a show.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[XxtraLarGe]

I have Netflix.
I have Amazon Prime...
When I cut the cord, I got Playstation VUE

Exact same setup as I have. I'm note sure what getting anything else (like Hulu) would add to the mix.

Re: Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Wootery]

Probably come out cheaper

I sincerely doubt it.

One of the main reasons so many people are dropping cable in favour of streaming subscriptions, is the price.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Wootery]

As "sims 2" already pointed out, they're in a different world in terms of price point, even just to rent. It's true that good movies are made available to rent a la carte long before they hit the subscription services' libraries, but the difference in price is enormous.

If you only watch one or two movies a month, maybe it would be a reasonable alternative.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[rtb61]

Spectator sports are slowly but surely dying as the bullshit marketing surrounding adults playing as children ceasing to sustain marketing impact. The drones that play sport, repeating the same activities over and over again is no great skill, are losing their ability to lie effectively (it's not lying, it's acting, with regard to athletes and other pseudo celebrities) and with that goes their ability, well not their ability, the writers ability to put words into the sporting douches mouth in order to promote products. After that is all it really is in reality, a marketing engine, and once it loses it's marketing bite, the ability to create immature victims of marketing, so the dollars will disappear and with it the spectator sport.

Much of the content produced in this millennium has been pretty shite, crap stories poorly told and much of it retreads of old content (better story, told better but just doesn't look as good). Rampant nepotism, trying to produce content via formulas, people with no creativity ability trying guess who are the people with actual creative ability (those without can never pick those with, they simply guess and often guess badly).

Those idiots are stuck in the last millennium because that is all they know and they are just losing the content creation game in this millennium. I can see self funding creative groups becoming this centuries big creative push. Parasitical studios and publishers out, with creative association taking the lead.

Re: Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Wootery]

People are surprisingly bad at handling subscriptions. There are probably millions, or even tens of millions, of Netflix subscribers who haven't watched anything in months.

As you imply, the correct way to think about it isn't as a subscription that you 'just have', but as you buying another month of the service each time payment day comes round. Strictly, the rational thing would be to habitually cancel at the end of each subscription month, and only re-subscribe when you next sit down to watch something. Few people seem able (or bothered) to do this, though.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[CyberKender]

This is the issue that these companies don't seem to get. The audience pie is only so big, but they keep thinking that people are willing to pay for smaller and smaller slices. Netflix, $10/mo. Hulu $10/mo. Amazon, ~$9/mo. iTunes, YouTube Red, $10/mo. Disney, iTunes, etc. etc... Add it up and wonder why you ever stopped sending one check to pay for that cable subscription.

Learn to share, people. Disney, if you're not on Netflix's slice, and you don't find a truly compelling reason to use your service, you're going to loose this one. If all you're doing is restricting legal access to your stuff, people will just pirate them or rip the DVDs to their [Plex] system...

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[omnichad]

This is Cable 3.0

Eventually the distributors will catch on to the idea that consumers don't like paying so many separate bills for content every month, so they will offer bundles of the most popular providers for a set price for month. Sure, these bundles will often include content that you're not interested in, but you won't have a choice.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[omnichad]

When I switched cord providers, I chose Playstation VUE

FTFY.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[jwhyche]

This is my thought on the subject. I have netflix, hulu, and the curiositystream. I have plenty of things to watch if I want to waste my time watching it. If you don't want to put it on one of those 3 services, then I won't be watching it.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[omnichad]

You think Disney won't bundle ESPN and make you pay for both? That was always the problem with their cable deals and here they are doing it on their own.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[angel'o'sphere]

Oh, no worries, it will be available in your country.
But as soon as you are on vacation in a different country the app or the browser won't work anymore unless you use a VPN (which is probably against the terms of service). Not to mention the wasted money for your plan while you are on vacation.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[CrashNBrn]

Netflix doesn't solve anything anymore. In the last 4 years they've lost most of their content. Most of the Martial Arts movies, Mash, most non-B movies.

What you think Netflix has, is what you thought it had years ago. Thats gone. Example, March, 24 2016: Netflix lost 32% of its content in ~2 years.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[CrashNBrn]

Bullshit. This Disney "announcement" was a side-note in their last quarters earnings result.

Disney isn't concerned about a bunch of B-comics like Jupiters Circle.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[TheCastro1689]

The lame Marvel movies they've been releasing and a few tired Star Wars movies that I still haven't seen (I even went to the theaters for the prequels) aren't enough to make me want a Disney streaming service unless it was only $2.99 at most per month.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[TheCastro1689]

Hulu has several shows that neither of the other two have. I find a lot of overlap in Amazon and Netflix, but I do have cable with HBO which really makes Amazon only good for their own content.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[SScorpio]

Is a pay-per-view really needed? Looking at pricing on Amazon Video a movie (1.5-2 hours) rental for anything recent is $5-6. TV series can be purchased for around $15-25.

Netflix costs $10/month and the whole season is released all at once. Just figure out what you are interested in watching and hop your subscription between the difference services. You'll end up paying $10-15/month and be able to watch anything. I can't see piece meal pricing being any less expensive than that.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[apoc.famine]

Disney might have the content, but they won't get the user experience right.

How much does a one-day pass to Disney World cost? It's not just the user experience - if it doesn't cost at minimum 2x as much as Netflicks and suck hard, I'll be really surprised. When the only way to watch some of the older Disney movies, Star Wars, and Marvel movies is their platform, they're going to squeeze people soooo hard..... I wouldn't be surprised if the blueray prices got bumped up as well, just to make sure that their streaming service looks a little more enticing.
 
And now that I think about it, I bet Disney does some exclusive shit to bump interest and get that cash. They already stop producing older movies for years so they can re-release them to a new generation of kids on new media formats - bet they do the same with this as well. So the worst of all worlds - fragment where you can see things, charge a lot for them, and keep an incomplete catalog for no reason save artificial scarcity and marketing gimmicks. I'll put $20 on this bet.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[rahvin112]

They will add advertising, the primary reason Netflix subscribers give for subscribing is the lack of advertising.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[dgatwood]

How much live sports does Hulu have to offer? ESPN + BAMTech has a lot. That plus the Disney catalog, plus Star Wars, plus Marvel gives them a pretty good start.

Meh. The problem with their model is that the number of people who want to watch only Disney content is remarkably small.

Some parents with kids might pay Disney for streaming access to Disney movies, but if they're smart, they'll buy the shows from iTunes or buy the DVD and not pay for the same content over and over and over again. After all, most kids seem to want to watch the same two or three movies over and over again anyway.

Netflix never carried live sports in the first place, so that's a no-op.

So basically, the only people who will be affected by this change are the ones who just occasionally think, "I'd kind of like to see that Disney movie." And I can tell you how many of those people will be willing to pay Disney a multi-dollar-per-month subscription fee for that privilege. Zero.

Zero.

The whole concept of each content provider making its own subscription service is fundamentally doomed right from the start, because each content provider thinks that it should get a bigger slice of the pie, and so charges more for the content than they were getting from Netflix. And users aren't going to say, "You know what, I'd like to pay 5x as much for the same content," so they will invariably respond by buying content from only one of the five vendors, and suddenly they're all still making the same amount of money, but their content is being seen by a fifth as many people. And because their reach decreases, there are fewer people talking about their content to other people, and thus less word-of-mouth advertising to drive people to their platform, and the result is a death spiral for all of the various services.

This keeps happening. Content providers keep making the same mistakes. And for some reason, they keep failing to learn from those mistakes. It's almost like they're all secretly hoping Apple will buy them and put their management out of its misery or something.

Re: Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[mjwx]

How is that not kid friendly? It's wrong to coddle children and keep them away from the good things in life (blood, boobies, giant fighting robots, etc).

Japan produces a lot of kid friendly animation, most of which gets dubbed by western distributors. It just gets overshadowed by Anime and Hentai. That being said, South Korea is rapidly moving into that market (erm... the kid friendly stuff, not the Hentai).

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[geoscodin]

More like CBS All Access 2.0 I'll pass, and probably watch any interesting Disney movies on RedBox.

Re:Progress of the Arts and Sciences

[Altrag]

That's kind of my point: Few of those new individual services that each distributor wants to make for themselves solve the second problem that Netflix solved, and if Netflix no longer solves that problem either.. people will just go back to piracy.

More and more

[bferrell]

This all resembles when the studios vertically "integrated" the movie houses... And were eventually forced to divest.

Let's see... What all does Comcast own/control.

No, we don't need network neutrality

Re:More and more

[bferrell]

Maybe you should look at a bit of a distance... Not be so blindly literal.

As I said, it looks the same as in the 20s when the studios (Disney) vertically integrated the movie houses (their own distribution "channels"). Fox theaters weren't allowed to run Paramount or Universal films... Eventually the outlets were actually owned by Fox, Paramount, Universal etc.

While it's isn't Comcast or the internet in this instance, in principal, it IS the same thing.

Legislation was eventually passed disallowing this type of practice.

So sad I had to spell it out SO precisely.

Re:More and more

[bferrell]

At first, the studios didn't own the movie houses either. Over time, independent movies houses couldn't compete and were bought up. The studios didn't own the roads either, but the movies houses (not to mention distribution companies).

At one time, several years ago, I started "following the money" with google searches on who owned what. I started with the theater chains. I found a small handful of "amusement" companies from the midwest owned all the major theater chains, huge chunks (if not controlling interest) of production companies, studios, distribution companies and media/cable companies. All very quiet and low key. Very unlike when the studios ran the conglomerates. I guess they learned their lesson.

Re:More and more

[bferrell]

Well... You could, but you had to do it "retail". Visit large number of privately owned venues/theaters (often vaudeville "palaces"), selling each owner on why he should exhibit your product/act. As owners began consolidating their properties as vaudeville collapsed, buying up the chains became the next obvious move.

Textbook illustration of why market forces aren't to be trusted.

Re:More and more

[tlhIngan]

It'll sort itself out. If people find it annoying to subscribe to every movie studio's streaming service, then they'll see a drop in overall revenue and will be forced to reintroduce their libraries to consolidated streaming services like Netflix. If people don't think it's too much hassle to subscribe to every movie studio's streaming service, then this will become the new norm and Netflix will die out (well, probably not since they're working hard to become their own studio).

From an end viewer's perspective, this means if you would prefer Disney's library be available on Netflix, then you shouldn't subscribe to Disney's new service. That way you send them a message that you don't like the change. As for what to do in the interim, The Oatmeal had a relevant comic.

The market is simply giving what people are demanding. A la carte. You want to buy by the channel, they're offering streaming services by the channel. Why buy Netflix which means you get dozens of movies from dozens of channels, when you only want the few movies from one or two channels?

It's just a lot easier for the market to make TV a la carte when you cut the cord than it is for cable providers to release a la carte offerings (which in general will only be cheaper if you only do watch 1 or 2 channels, but on a whole, most people will probably be better off with bundles).

Heck, Amazon and iTunes and others allow you do further and pay by the show.

Of course, people complain about how expensive it all is and won't someone please bundle it all up cheaper... because... cheaper! Maybe those evil cable companies bundling up dozens of channels were on to something after all....

Disney is a bit of a unique case though. They're gambling that kids begging for Disney movies will be able to override the parents' rational decision not to subscribe to Disney's streaming service after they pull their library from Netflix. They're probably right.

Think of it this way. Disney is the world's largest entertainment company by any measure you want - revenue, profit, size, etc.

They didn't get that way not knowing their audience.

Re:More and more

[bferrell]

The studio system was supported by predatory behavior towards the performers, craft workers of all kinds and the public at large.

The internet wasn't setup to "satisfy the last-mile wishes of people setting up content portals" either. It HAS become that, true. No, they don't "all rent from the same big backbone" either. You have just illustrated clearly that have no idea how telecommunications networks actually work (modern or otherwise); using instead that wonderful fallacy of "it just works".

I would suggest that you have a look into history and find out why the interstate commerce commission was created; what the exact issues were that caused it's creation.

Look too at why the studios were REQUIRED to divest of the end product delivery "portals" and a lot of the rest of the distribution chain. They were in fact required to do so. It wasn't market forces.

For bonus points, look at how the two instances were similar. The differences are stupidly easy; The similarities are harder but far more illuminating.

Won't even notice they're gone.

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't even notice they're gone. I refuse to watch their content even when it is present.

My max is two paid streaming services

[Hadlock]

I don't have time or budget to deal with more than two paid streaming services. Billing, passwords, setting up and maintaining devices, etc is a real hassle.If it's not on either service, I am not going to watch it. Period.

I have Netflix, and I have Amazon Prime*

This is plenty, I can watch 99% of what I want, and if it's critically important (movie night with friends), we'll do a 24 hour streaming rental. Maybe when we have kids we'll dump netflix for disney, but until that day, we'll just stop watching disney movies. It's just not worth it as an adult with limited free time, a commute and other priorities.

*We do have HBO now, through Prime, but we're huge Game of Thrones nerds, and it bills/streams through the Amazon Prime app so it's pretty low hassle

Re:My max is two paid streaming services

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have time or budget to deal with more than two paid streaming services.

Really, all this fragmentation will kill the business. Without one stop shopping and reasonable prices, it's better to just go back to bittorrent.

Re:My max is two paid streaming services

[Anonymous Coward]

my max is ONE paid service. ONE. and that's basic cable because we can't get ota signals here.

viewers aren't going to want to pay 20 different streaming sites to get the programs their family wants. that's fucking crazy. these media company executives are fucking nutzo if they believe they can con everybody into doing that.

Re:My max is two paid streaming services

[Anonymous Coward]

Same. I've got Netflix & Prime, I don't want to pirate, I like financially supporting the movies, music, books, and games that I enjoy, but I don't like where this is going. Maybe if their services are reasonably priced, I'll consider it, but you damn well know that everything is going to be as much or more than Netflix. Then the commercials will start coming, and you know they will, then just you wait and see, there will be premium subscriptions, and we'll be right back to square one. But hey, if the corporations just want to encourage piracy, that's not my problem.

Besides that, in Disney's case, let's not forget how much of their content would already be in the public domain if we had reasonable copyright laws.

Re:My max is two paid streaming services

[93 Escort Wagon]

Really, all this fragmentation will kill the business. Without one stop shopping and reasonable prices, it's better to just go back to bittorrent.

I've probably posted this before, but in any case - I fully expect the next several years to be really, really annoying for those of us trying to "do the right thing" and pay for content. Every entity which owns even a tiny piece of some popular show or movie is going to attempt to launch their own streaming service.

Eventually most of them will shut down after losing lots of money, and things will consolidate back to just a few aggregators - but until then it's going to be stupidly annoying.

In the meantime I'm not going to pay for a streaming service just for one show - not Star Trek, not Stargate, not Star Search. There's already more streaming content available than I could reasonably see in my lifetime.

Re:My max is two paid streaming services

[Dutch Gun]

Really, all this fragmentation will kill the business. Without one stop shopping and reasonable prices, it's better to just go back to bittorrent.

I'm not sure I agree. Isn't "a la carte" what we wanted and were unable to get with the cable companies for many years? Well, now we have it. These individual services have to compete with the current price models and with each other, meaning that you can still subscribe to four services easily and still pay far less than the vast majority of cable packages.

I don't think we'll ever have more than half a dozen major services, and the rest will be highly specialized or also-rans. I'm totally fine with that, so long as the services don't collude to bring their prices up collectively.

Re:My max is two paid streaming services

[Octorian]

I don't have time or budget to deal with more than two paid streaming services. Billing, passwords, setting up and maintaining devices, etc is a real hassle.If it's not on either service, I am not going to watch it. Period.

This is made even more annoying by the very real possibility that every service will not necessarily be available on every device you actually want to watch content on. Sure, Netflix and Amazon Prime do a fairly decent job in this department, but they also have the experienced engineering resources to dedicate to the effort. There's really no guarantee that every other little two-bit studio-specific streaming service will do the same.

Re:My max is two paid streaming services

[grahamsz]

I think Amazon's play here is really smart. We too have HBO through that route when we probably wouldn't bother with it otherwise. Being able to add a streaming service for a few months without any billing or device hassles is pretty huge.

Re:My max is two paid streaming services

[nwf]

I'm not sure I agree. Isn't "a la carte" what we wanted and were unable to get with the cable companies for many years? Well, now we have it.

Alas, this doesn't get us to real a al carte. People want to select the channels they want to watch, pay a single bill and use a single remote to flip through those channels and record the programs for later viewing (or view on demand.) None of these new services offer this. And if you want 15 channels at $10/mo, that's more than cable.

Most streaming services are terrible in terms of UI and streaming quality.

Re:My max is two paid streaming services

[nwf]

Same with me. Two is it, and even that's pushing it.

I have Netflix, which I can watch anywhere at any time. However, discovering new shows is hard and they pretty much just have their original programming at this point. Everything else is total crap. With the Disney properties, they actually had other stuff to watch but I wasn't expecting it to stay around. Now they will effectively be a single channel or network, but with a budget larger than everyone else by several times. On the other hand, I like a lot of the Disney/Marvel stuff and buy much of it on Blu-ray. I'll likely keep doing so and just not watch some of the marginal stuff.

I also have Amazon Prime, but never watch it since it can't do so on my Apple TV and their user interface is pathetic and it aggravates me every single time. All the other also-rans are in the noise. I just don't care, but would have watched some programs if they were included in Netflix.

I tried CBS All Access when I wanted to catch up on a show, but it was amazingly lame. "All Access" to me means that I can watch anything, anytime. Nope. I could only watch Big Bang Theory's last few episodes. Not the entire current season. Canceled with extreme prejudice (which was difficult.) I want to watch the new Star Trek, but I'll never try their crap streaming service again. I guess that leaves torrenting or waiting until it comes out on Blu-ray.

I have a cable TV package, but there's too much garbage. I watch maybe 6 channels, 100% recorded on my TiVo. And what I watch there is getting less and less each year, whereas Netflix is growing. Commercials are getting far to frequent and annoying. I'd rather stare at the ceiling than watch live commercial TV.

Re:My max is two paid streaming services

[TheGratefulNet]

'do the right thing' went out the window decades ago.

the new game is: screw unto other before others can screw unto you.

or, restated, do whatever you can, ethics or not, as long as you make money. customer rights? not relevant. fair use? not relevant. DRM? yup, still there and still a PITA.

I gave up trying to care, anymore. the rich guys pay no taxes, have offshore accounts, make their own laws and we little people have OUR laws (which are enforced, unlike laws for rich folks and corps).

I look at all this and say: why is it that THEY get to bend/break rules and get away with it, and yet we're expected to just keep following the ones set down FOR US?

after I thought about it, I stopped wanting to be their fool and their sucker.

I torrent and could not care less about their profits or business model. they do whatever they want and they get away with it, and so I'll fight fire with fire and do whatever the fuck I want.

yes, its gotton to that.

Re:My max is two paid streaming services

[Dutch Gun]

Yes, a la carte was what we wanted. But we didn't want it to come with dozens of monthly bills, we wanted to still have just a single bill.

We don't have "dozens". At the moment, we have FOUR. There's Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and YouTube as the current big four, plus a number of smaller specialty channels. Now add Disney as well, if it succeeds. But most people are not planning to subscribe to ALL of them, just as few people subscribed to ALL the channels available on cable.

If you were getting a single bill, it would mean there wasn't any competition between these services. A single monolithic company that serves everything you want is a pipe dream. That's what the cable companies were, and that's exactly WHY a la carte programming was never offered. I'll take the lessor of the two evils, I think.

Re:My max is two paid streaming services

[sims 2]

Premium? You mean like how hulu started as a paid with ads service and now offers a premium service with less ads? (but they won't sell an ad free service because fuck you)

Re: My max is two paid streaming services

[Hadlock]

And Showtime, and HBO, and AMC. That doesn't even cover specialty stuff like Spanish telenovelas, Spanish football/Soccer, and I'd imagine Japanese xyz stuff. Plus NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, NASCAR, Formula 1, etc etc ad nauseum

Re: My max is two paid streaming services

[Dutch Gun]

You forgot Cinemax. Yes, I covered that with "plus a number of smaller specialty channels", in case you missed it. And you make all those options sound like a bad thing. I disagree. I'm not interested in most of that, and I'm thankful I don't have to pay for the channels I don't want. On the other hand, the specialty channels are awesome at giving you lots of what you DO want for a reasonable price.

I subscribe, like you, to Netflix and Prime, which gives me plenty of "normal" TV. I also subscribe to a couple of anime channels, which again, gives me a smorgasbord of anime to watch at any time. All this for under $35 a month, which is far less than what I'd pay for basic cable, and all for a much better TV experience.

What's more, I can choose to pay any range I want, from $10 a month up to $150 (or more?) if I was a television glutton, or just had infinite money to spend on stuff I didn't need. This sure seems like "a la carte" to me. A perfect system? Of course not. But far better, in my opinion, and demonstrably cheaper than cable has been for the last decade or so.

Re:My max is two paid streaming services

[Mandrel]

Alas, this doesn't get us to real a al carte. People want to select the channels they want to watch, pay a single bill and use a single remote to flip through those channels and record the programs for later viewing (or view on demand.).

To me, à la carte needs to be more fine-grained than just choosing channels. And more fine-grained than just choosing shows. I'd like all movies and individual TV episodes to be available for separate rental or purchase at a reasonable price. Google Play is getting there, but it looks like more stuff is being locked away in streaming bundles. It's bundling Mark 2.

Re:My max is two paid streaming services

[nwf]

To me, à la carte needs to be more fine-grained than just choosing channels. And more fine-grained than just choosing shows. I'd like all movies and individual TV episodes to be available for separate rental or purchase at a reasonable price. Google Play is getting there, but it looks like more stuff is being locked away in streaming bundles. It's bundling Mark 2.

I think that's different, but I'd prefer that. I'd gladly pay Netflix like $40/mo for such a service. But the video content providers aren't as sane as the music providers, it seems. With music, I like to listen to the same song again. Not so much with TV, yet most people would pay more than for a streaming music service. Yet everyone wants to do their own thing. Imagine if every music label offered its own streaming service.

Force Awakens was garbage

[Spy Handler]

That means Netflix should be able to stream the next two Star Wars movies, but it'll miss out on the new trilogy's final installment.

and nothing of value was lost...

Wow

[christurkel]

I just was thinking yesterday: Know what I need? Another streaming service in my life!

Re:Wow

[chispito]

I just was thinking yesterday: Know what I need? Another streaming service in my life!

The world needs this like it needs another messaging service or phone payment system.

Re:Wow

[fahrbot-bot]

I just was thinking yesterday: Know what I need? Another streaming service in my life!

The world needs this like it needs another messaging service or phone payment system.

Or another Linux distro. :-)

Re:Wow

[MBGMorden]

Yep. I'm tapped out at this point. I've got Netflix. I've got Amazon video ONLY because it comes with Prime for "free". Other than that - I'm done. I subscribed to Hulu for a good year and a half before I realized I wasn't watching it. Same with Sling.

Truthfully while I'd be fine paying a little more than I am for Netflix (i'd probably be willing to go up to $19.95), I'm not going to keep tacking on a service for tons of different networks unless they're priced VERY competitively. Like, $4/month or less . . .

Re:Wow

[Neo-Rio-101]

or cryptocurrency

Wise of Disney

[chispito]

Disney, more than any other content producer/distributor, has a massive catalog with a very well-defined market. They'll probably pull stuff like streaming movies that are in the "Disney Vault" (that's code for artificially scarce films that aren't as good as you remember anyway).

Re:Wise of Disney

[93 Escort Wagon]

Thing is, it'd likely be cheaper to just buy the DVDs / Blurays of the Disney movies you want, rip them yourself and then watch them whenever you'd like.

Re:Wise of Disney

[MBGMorden]

That vault isn't THAT big. Maybe if they pulled a backlog of all the shows that have ever been on The Disney Channel and made them available they'd have enough to warrant an entire service, but I doubt it.

There's also the question of clients. Netflix has done VERY well by basically developing a client for any box you can imagine that connects a TV. PCs, tablets, Fire TV, Apple TV, Roku, and pretty much all current video game consoles all have a Netflix client. Heck with a smart TV you might not even need a separate client (IMHO with streaming sticks being as cheap as they are that's a bit of a gimmick, but at least it saves you an input).

Unless Disney throws a large team of programmers at it it'll be hard for them to match Netflix's ubiquity.

Re:Wise of Disney

[nwf]

Unless Disney throws a large team of programmers at it it'll be hard for them to match Netflix's ubiquity.

That's true. They are reducing the friction to be entertained, and all these other services are increasing it. We'll see what people want, but low friction choices almost always win.

Re:Wise of Disney

[Dan East]

Thing is, it'd likely be cheaper to just buy the DVDs / Blurays of the Disney movies you want, rip them yourself and then watch them whenever you'd like.

You do know that movies make less than 1% of the total volume of what Disney has produced, right? Take a look at this list. These are all series which each comprise dozens if not hundreds of episodes. Yeah, you go ahead and buy all those DVD sets and tell me that's cheaper than paying for streaming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Wise of Disney

[thegarbz]

has a massive catalog with a very well-defined market.

Unfortunately they also have a market defined predominantly by people who fall into the category of not old enough to have money, or pirates. I would happily wager only a few percent of people watch Disney content on Netflix accounts which they paid for, as opposed to another member of their family.

Re:Wise of Disney

[Gilgaron]

Sure but the series don't hold as much sway with kids because there isn't any merchandise associated with them. We cut cable before my younger daughter was old enough to watch TV, but via peer exposure she has become a big fan of a Nickelodeon show she had never seen, and requested some DVDs from the library. Since then we bought a few DVDs and ripped them onto her tablet. The Disney products with lots of T shirts and so on to advertise to other children are the movies. (If she wants to stream something there's Tumbleleaf on Amazon Prime and all sorts of things on Netflix. I'm not paying another subscription fee or I would be better off getting cable again.)

Sorry, Disney, you lose my "eyes", not Netflix

[PeterM from Berkeley]

No way am I going to sign up for Disney's streaming service. There are too many streaming services already and I'm going to stick with the successful ones that have the broadest offerings.

If I were Disney, I would be pushing for a fair revenue sharing deal. Push Netflix to share out their revenue to the content providers according to the fraction of time watched, and push Netflix to provide transparency so this can be audited. Netflix, in turn, should charge a reasonable delivery/infrastructure fee, and share out the revenue for content "blind" to where the content comes from. I.e., if their own content generation produces 30% of the viewing, their own content generation division gets 30% of the content revenue.

--PeterM

Re:Sorry, Disney, you lose my "eyes", not Netflix

[nwf]

I think Netflix basically has two options:

1. Drop all non-original stuff and become the world's largest movie and serial provider, or
2. Start offering add-ons where you can drop in the Disney catalog, the CBS catalog, etc. (Like Amazon does, but much better.)

These idiot network executives see Netflix's revenue, and they figure they deserve half of that for their lame catalog. Netflix says no, so they pull their stuff and think "that will show them!" Hardly. They'll all be irrelevant in 10 years except Netflix, Amazon and HBO they way it's going.

Re:Sorry, Disney, you lose my "eyes", not Netflix

[edi_guy]

Agreed. I have kids and thus Disney is part of our lives. But as others have said, I'm not about to add the "Disney Channel" to my Netflix and Amazon subscriptions. Nor HBO.com, nor CBS.com, nor Hulu. Two streaming platforms is plenty. And here's the thing. Netflix successfully changed my viewing habits. We ditched cable many years ago, but now even OTA TV is rarely watched. Disney shows will go by the wayside for us, probably more PBS and older kids content will fill in nicely. What Disney Corp. fails to realize is that since my kids won't be watching their shows, they also won't want any of the associated merchandise either. Win win for a parent, too bad for DIS stock.

Vid Angel

[irrational_design]

I wonder if this has to do with the Vid Angel/Disney lawsuit and the recent workaround that allows Vid Angel to filter Disney movies on Netflix. By moving their movies off of Netflix, they effectively block Vid Angel again.

Re:Vid Angel

[richy freeway]

What is Vid Angel?

I've just been to their website and read the "About Us" and I'm still none the wiser.

Re:Vid Angel

[Gilgaron]

They use some trickery to allow you to stream censored versions of movies (and maybe shows?). Somehow they do this without actually licensing the content themselves, I'm not aware of the technicalities. I always found TV edits of movies confusing and annoying as a kid, I think for mine they'll do just as well to wait to watch a movie until they can handle the thing in its entirety.

Re: Vid Angel

[richy freeway]

I wonder why they don't mention that on their website...

Odd.

Not understanding how it's a blow to Netflix.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The move is a real blow to Netflix, which secured a valuable streaming deal with Disney back in 2012 -- before streaming had really taken off,"

How is this a blow to Netflix. No shot in hell I'm paying for another streaming service just for Disney's dinky library. So this just means I will torrent the Disney movies and Netflix can free up some revenue for other movies or more original content.

Re:Not understanding how it's a blow to Netflix.

[technomom]

Because they don't care about you. What Disney just bought is the powerhouse behind a lot of live sports streaming. This is something that Hulu and Netflix don't have. The one thing that keeps cable television alive is rabid live sports fans. Baseball and Hockey are both powered by BAMTech, which is now going to be 75% owned by Disney/ESPN. Add that to ESPN's already existing sports stuff. That plus the content that the do have (and Disney's catalog is pretty massive) makes them very competitive.

Re:Not understanding how it's a blow to Netflix.

[Rakarra]

How is this a blow to Netflix. No shot in hell I'm paying for another streaming service just for Disney's dinky library

Maybe, but it also lessens the value of Netflix's library, again. The content companies have been chipping away at it as best they can in the last few years.

Netflix's value was built on two things: original series, and being the one-stop-shop for all content. I always found the latter far far more valuable. Without it, they become just another hbo or disney or amc. A much more precarious situation. Worse yet, the customers lose what had been an incredibly useful service.

Re:Not understanding how it's a blow to Netflix.

[Gilgaron]

I do think Netflix is positioning themselves well for syndicated content, still. Plenty of TV shows that I'd considered getting on Amazon but just wait a year and it is on Netflix. Similarly, since they're distributing the new Star Trek show outside the US I think I'll skip the CBS service and see if it shows up on Netflix in a year. Even if it doesn't show up there, if the reviews were good enough then sub for CBS for a month and binge it. Netflix will stay king if they can keep enough people subscribing year round rather than "just when Game of Thrones is on" like we do with HBO Now.

Re:Not understanding how it's a blow to Netflix.

[neo-mkrey]

"Disney's dinky library" -- you are delusional.

I am SO glad to see them go

[wonkavader]

It's so hard keeping my daughter from watching their two hour advertisements. I'm honestly extremely happy they are pulling out.

Video Games

[darkain]

Disney already tried this with licensing out their characters to other companies to produce video games. They decided to stop that practice entirely and use an in-house game studio instead. Their games went to shit. Then a couple years later, they started licensing out again.

I have a feeling that history will repeat itself with this news of licensing streaming content.

Re:Video Games

[swillden]

Disney already tried this with licensing out their characters to other companies to produce video games. They decided to stop that practice entirely and use an in-house game studio instead. Their games went to shit. Then a couple years later, they started licensing out again.

I have a feeling that history will repeat itself with this news of licensing streaming content.

So, Disney is bad at making video games. They seem to be pretty successful at making movies; have been for a century. Streaming licensing has nothing to do with the making of movies, it's just one distribution channel, and not even the most lucrative.

Completely different situations.

Re:Video Games

[drinkypoo]

I think the point is that when it comes to doing something other than producing content or operating an amusement park, Disney has traditionally failed. And they fail at those things sometimes, too.

Re:Video Games

[cmseagle]

The 82% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes says that most people disagree with you.

Cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they like reduced income!

Because this is how you get reduced income.

I'm sure EA still congratulates themselves every day for how many more sales they got from leaving Steam too. But hey, now they get 15% more on the (guessing) 75% reduced online sales on PC, and everyone who DOES enjoy their service enjoys having to have an extra piece of software and sets of logins to manage!

Same story here - soon folks who use the new 'service' have got to manage their "Disney Account". have another icon on your viewing platform, keep track of what your kids are clicking into. Oh, and expect your kids to ask you about their new 'service' after playing any games on the Disney family of websites.

I'm just guessing they want to implement some form of pay-per-view DLC in their new online system, perhaps 'upgrading' to see behind-the-scenes and the like.

After all, that's the kinds of things you have to promise stock holders when you rip your product from the biggest online market and set up your own shop.

I've known folks who've worked for them and their technical divisions - I'm sure it'll be 'wildly popular' in the room, with just the largest eye roll the moment they're talking with anyone technically minded outside of that room. Every CEO that works for them gets into this same illusion-of-control trap that everyone ends up having to cater to, while losing the vast majority of the income they could be making by trying to treat everyone like theme park visitors.

The good news is that this will lead to another generation of young folks raised on seeing how foolish such systems are, and figuring out lovely ways to bypass them. I was worried that some reasonably ubiquitous online service with comfortably minimal prices would lead to a slacking of that trend - but no, greed always finds a way to screw itself over while making it enjoyable for those clever enough to bypass that greed.

Battle of the century folks!

[WolfgangVL]

The titan of original content..... The coolest of the streams, and the great keeper of the DVDs.... ***NETFLIX***!!!!
(crowd wildly chanting "STREAM-ING STREAM-ING")

vs

(fog machines to full blast)
The dark cabal of children's entertainment!!, the cartoonists you love to hate!!... the gatekeepers of American football, the extenders of copyright law!! The champions of the DMCA!.....MARVEL/ABC/DISNEY/ESPN!!!!!!!

(booooooooo)

Yay!

[easyTree]

Another win for consumers! One step closer to the Nirvana where every show has its own monthly subscription service.

Re:Yay!

[StormReaver]

Netflix has a bunch of Disney shows (but not movies, strangely) that I love to watch. But I have zero problems with finding something else to watch when Disney is gone. I didn't watch or enjoy those shows because they were Disney. I watched and enjoyed them because they were good.

Netflix is fully capable of making great original programming, and I will watch them when I find them.

Re: Yay!

[easyTree]

Sorry. No idea what you're talking about. I didn't study history.

Re:Ala-carte disaster

[Anonymous Coward]

What - wait - I thought you couldn't afford the rising cable/satellite rates! Now you can't afford a la carte? My head hurts... I guess people will never be happy unless all this stuff is free. Which ain't gonna happen.

Re:Disney has a lot of video assets

[aevan]

Well Zip-a-dee-doo-dah-day.

We cut the cord for this?

[ZorinLynx]

Soon there will be so many streaming services that if you want to be able to watch everything you're going to pay more money than the cable subscription you canceled.

What the heck is the point? We're back to square one: It's too damn expensive, might as well pirate the content.

Save the moral arguments; it doesn't matter. There's a point where the cost involved becomes prohibitive, and people still want to see the content. Make of that what you will.

Re:We cut the cord for this?

[umafuckit]

I'm not paying $180/yr to see Game of Thrones

Last time I checked the new episodes for Season 7 are 3 bucks each on Google's Play store.

Re:We cut the cord for this?

[Rakarra]

the heck is the point? We're back to square one: It's too damn expensive,

That IS the point -- to make content more expensive. The content cartels were crying for years and years that the Netflix model was unfair and in the age of the Blu Ray they were getting cheated, CHEATED out of billions because people weren't paying ridiculous pay-per-view fees. Well copyright gives them the power to own any distribution, and they know people will pay up.

Cables comeback...

[Taelron]

Cut the Cable and go to streaming to save money...

More and more companies start their own steaming service and remove their shows from the existing services...

Now you'll have to subscribe to a half dozen or more streaming services to see the shows you might be interested in...

Cable prices aren't looking as crazy anymore...

Re:Cables comeback...

[MBGMorden]

It's still in the early days of the business model. IMHO, most people aren't going to subscribe to more than a few services. IMHO, over the next 5-10 years we'll see a LOT of studios and companies dip their toes into the streaming pool, only for their ventures to fail and them start looking for a partner service to distribute their shows.

We may end up with a few more mainstream services than we have now, but honestly the market just can't support having a billable streaming service for everything that used to be a "channel" on cable.

OR, use the OTA model online - put out you own client that streams the shows for no cost but pay for it with ads/commercials.

Re:Cables comeback...

[zippthorne]

OR, use the OTA model online - put out you own client that streams the shows for no cost but pay for it with ads/commercials.

Personally, I think that one is the worst scenario. Not the least likely, but the worst for the audiences. My time is a lot more valuable to me as time than it is to them as "attention". I'd rather just make money doing the thing I do to make money, and send it to them for the content than have to sit a thousand dollars worth of time through commercials for a hundred dollars worth of entertainment.

I don't think there's inherently a problem with everyone going their own on streaming, either, but I don't think each studio is worth $10/month. If it shakes out that everyone tries to charge that much, it'll suck for consumers for a while and then consolidate somehow. If there's a spectrum of prices and they collaborate just enough to have some kind of universal protocol people can write clients to as a portal to the whole thing, it might work out the way everyone wanted.

Re:Cables comeback...

[Rolgar]

You know what, my wife and I kicked the cable subscription almost 2 years ago. Our primary source of entertainment is checking out seasons of TV shows we are interested in on DVD from our library. It does mean that we have to wait until the next season starts and our turn in the checkout queue to get to watch. We don't discuss the shows we watch with anybody else, and we don't track the shows on the internet/facebook, so spoilers and the like aren't a problem, and the show is just as enjoyable when we get around to watching it. Since we are waiting for last year's shows, we've picked out a couple of old shows that she's never seen, and are watching them. We are 75% of the way through one and 25% of the way through another. In another month or two, we'll start to splice in our current shows into our checkout routine.

If we were to go to a paid streaming route, unfortunately, two of the four shows we like going into this fall are on CBS, and I don't plan on getting the CBS plan for 2 shows, and Hulu isn't really an option for the other two shows. But, last night, my wife asked me about getting homeschooling classes onto our TV. Unfortunately, all of the classes are designed to work on PC, but not on our Roku. So I'm starting to look at building an HTPC that could run those classes. It should have the side benefit that we would be able to get all of those shows directly from their website, with commercials but for free. Or we could continue to wait for the DVDs the next year, and watch them commercial free.

I will say that waiting does have the benefit of being able to see which shows are good enough to survive the season and try out the ones that look decent. In the past we've watched and like shows that ended sooner than we liked. I guess we still liked them, but 2 shows in one year that were cancelled in mid-winter was a bit disappointing. Likewise, there is a show we like that we initially decided not to watch because when we watched the pilot, the cast seemed to lack chemistry. But then, surprised when the show was still on TV 7 seasons later, we decided to watch a recent set of episodes and decide it was worth watching. If we had been able to watch the entire season a decade ago, we may have stuck with the show initially, and been able to enjoy it all this time.

Re:Cables comeback...

[omnichad]

I do the same, more or less, with Netflix (streaming, they don't have enough discs to try this with anymore). Falling a year or two behind was the best thing that ever happened to my TV viewing habits. In some cases, picking up shows that I missed 10 years ago but are available to watch all at once.

I mostly watch OTA shows, recorded onto my HTPC and don't start watching until the whole season airs (or the show is cancelled).

It is so weird that...

[EzInKy]

...content providers still haven't got this by now. When you pay for internet access you expect access to all the internet. This paying a premium for premium access will never fly.

Re:It is so weird that...

[EzInKy]

If that is true, wouldn't it be better for everybody if nobody had to pay anybody for premium content? One price includes all would be the best outcome of all of us, including the bloodsuckers.

Re:It is so weird that...

[gravewax]

Not at all, different people want different things. I don't mind paying for what I use (which is really bugger all), but I would be fucking pissed if I was paying for what I am NOT using just so others can have a cheap/free ride.

Fuck You, Disney.

[geekmux]

Netflix. HBO. Amazon. Hulu. And now, Disney.

You know, the reason people started cutting cords was due to the fucking cost being forced upon us. $100 split across half a dozen streaming services is just as financially painful as a $100 cable bill. I hope Disney finds a loss with this bullshit move.

Toy Story 4 and Frozen 2? Way to "innovate" with yet another channel full of fucking sequels. Gee, can't wait for Star Wars, Episode 27. How original.

fuck you disney

[gravewax]

I am no Netflix fan (in fact just cancelled after the latest price hikes and screw you's they gave to customers in Australia), BUT fucking Disney is just showing yet again their heads are wedged firmly up their arses and trying to continue the traditional distribution models and locking viewers out of anything but a very narrow option. I don't care what movies they have or that my family wants I will pirate them before I support such douchebaggery.

The payment model

[philmarcracken]

The convenience of streaming I understand. It is superior to torrents. But I'll never sub to any of these streaming services unless they change the way they deliver the media itself. Torrents still offer the best product, its playable in anything, offline, high bitrate, and editable.

Then theres how they get paid. On Steam for example, I can pay a developer of a game directly. That means money goes exactly where I want it to go. The content creators I like stay in business meanwhile for her 'netflix special' amy schumer is still getting a cut of everyones sub.

This also solves a networking issue: peak congestion. If people can download and store what they want to watch, they don't all get home at the same time and start streaming it, throwing a big wrench in every ISPs contention ratio and slowing everything to a crawl.

And Steam has also proved it can handle large file sizes, as video games are now what would equate to multiple seasons of compressed video in not 'network extorted' bitrates.

Irrelevant in Australia

[Gumbercules!!]

Seeing that I live in Australia, I am sure this service will be denied to me, in any case, as I am sure Foxtel will have exclusive rights and will try to continue to enforce their ludicrous 1990's approach of making people sign up for Rugby, Cricket and some other shit sport I don't care about in order to watch one TV show at about $79 a month. Currently, if you want Game of Thrones and Silicon Valley, legally, in Australia, you're compelled to buy multiple different "packs" from these clowns and the price really is $79 a month. Or you can buy Private Internet Access for about $15 a year and torrent.... Why do you think Australia leads the world in piracy?

Re:Irrelevant in Australia

[talis9]

China leads the world in piracy, bro. Asia as a whole beats out Australia + West.

Australia leads on a per-capita basis. We don't have as many people, but we make up for it by torrenting a metric shitload of stuff!

Re:Irrelevant in Australia

[Neo-Rio-101]

We have trouble streaming stuff. The internet is so crap for many people here, we kind of have to download entire files and watch them later anyway.

Plus nobody gives a stuff about Australia as it's such a small market on the fringes of known civilization.

Re:Irrelevant in Australia

[omnichad]

if you want Game of Thrones and Silicon Valley, legally, in Australia

Wouldn't the Blu-Rays be cheaper?

Re:Irrelevant in Australia

[Gumbercules!!]

Probably they would be, in about 18 months time.

Re:Irrelevant in Australia

[omnichad]

That's the secret. Get at least 1 year behind on all your favorite shows. It's what I've been doing for at least the past few years. For one, you get the experience of all the episodes being available at once. Even the free OTA shows - just record the entire season before you start to watch.

WTF!

[intellitech]

I swear, everybody wants a piece of the streaming pie, but, AGAIN, they have NO CLUE what consumers want (or they just don't care - in which case, fuck them all). They had a much better chance bundling under Amazon Prime, Netflix, or Hulu, and that way consumers still had a better option than premium cable.

I will NOT pay for a streaming service for every channel or studio that broadcasts 1-2 things I watch. That being said, goodbye Disney. You can join the ranks of all the other morons in media I've disowned (HBO, Showtime, CBS, etc).

Cheers.

Re:WTF!

[hyades1]

Slowly but surely, these greedoids have been screwing down the controls. They might not exactly own every government in the world whose population wants access to this kind of entertainment, but they own enough parts of enough governments to be right on the verge of getting most people's computers under control.

For the next step, just look at China. I fully expect that within the next few years, VPN's will simply be outlawed in all the major markets "because kiddie porn" or "because terrorism" or "because drugs"...whatever bullshit they spread.

These people truly do not care about concepts like "free society" or "social good". They would roast your kids on a spit if it would add an extra dollar to their bottom line.

Ave Imperator!

[hyades1]

"Disney is promising about '10,000 live regional, national, and international games and events a year,' with individual sports packages available as well,"

They've obviously got the circuses part down. All we need now is the bread.

Re:Disney has a lot of video assets

[aevan]

Entirely my point. While Disney has a large vault, a lot of the older content wouldn't be PC enough. Black centaurs serving white centaurs in Fantasia. Jim Crow, the 'blackvoice' inner-city crows in Dumbo, etc. Old Disney was rather 'eurocentric stereotypes of other cultures'....can you just imagine if they aired Cannibal Capers during kiddie hours?

Blu-ray just got MORE popular!

[Templer421]

You can only charge me for the Blu-ray one time!

And ESPN? I WON'T BE MISSING THAT!

netflix has disney?

[wardk]

subscriber for years, didn't notice.

Yeah. Fuck that noise.

[Chas]

I have a sub to Netflix and I have a sub to Amazon Prime.
That's all I'm investing in.

DC wants their own streaming network for additional money. Fuck them.
Disney wants their own streaming network for additional money. Fuck them.

I don't get cable TV because I already pay $150/month for my internet service and I don't really watch anything on TV.
For the few things I have an interest in, I'm not going to pay additional amounts of money for multiple networks that essentially add up to a cable TV bill.

If I can't get the shit I want on Netflix or Amazon, I simply won't watch. Plain and simple.

COULD I afford it? Sure. Will I allow myself to be repeatedly "held up" for yet ANOTHER subscription service?
HELL THE FUCK NO.

And I, frankly, don't see what's wrong with continuing to license older content to another streaming network, and hold your own new content strictly to your network (outside of purchases) for 4-6 months. This way you continue bringing in licensing bucks and can still present on your own network for essentially no cost.

But no! It's not like Disney is sitting on a NINETY YEAR CACHE OF CONTENT or anything.
It's not like Warner Brothers has NINETY FIVE YEARS OF CONTENT.

With all of the studios that have come, gone, merged, etc, there are literally tens (if not hundreds) of millions of hours of content out of the major studios in the past century. Even if only one percent of which was considered "worthwhile", that's still hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of hours of excellence in programming. That's more than anyone could watch in a given lifetime. And that's before taking into account the pleasures of repeat viewing.

Switch every 6 months

[Anonymous Coward]

I swtch between Netflix and Amazon every 6 months. That way I can watch new content and not pay two services.

Bye Disney

[speedlaw]

1. fired IT dept..replaced with subcontinent slaves. 2. Kids watch own streams, and are way better at pirating than dad...way better 3. I cut the cord BECAUSE of Disney. When ESPN made the cable companies add a non negotiable Sports Fee of $7 per month I decided that paying $84 per year to Disney for NO REASON (don't watch sports, ESPN, or subscribe to a sports package) was just stupid. -snip- No Regrets...at all.

HBO is good. Disney better not force ESPN on peopl

[Joe_Dragon]

HBO is good. Disney better not force ESPN on people to get this.

and they own star wars and are going to fuck over Indy in indiana Jones 5.

Nope

[renegadesx]

I am not subscribing to any new services, especially single broadcast services like HBOGo, this new Disney channel, WWE Network or UFC Fight Pass. If Netflix or Hulu don't have it, I will ignore it. If my wife really wants it, there is bittorrent. Same goes for music and Spotify. They can have my money, but there is only so many places I will throw it to. Single broadcaster services are not getting my money ever. Im willing to meet them half way but if they are not willing to go to services that people are already at, then IMO they can get fucked, I will just go back to torrenting or ignoring them completely.

Disney will take itself off Google

[BLToday]

Disney will take itself off Google and launch a competing search engine. They'll call it something cool like Infoseek or Go.com. I'm sure it's going to be very successful.

Re:Yeah. Fuck that noise.

[toejam13]

I don't see what's wrong with continuing to license older content to another streaming network

You would think that it would be in their best interest to release content to at least one competing streaming service after 6-12 months in order to avoid antitrust regulations. As someone upstream mentioned, when movie theaters were studio specific, the feds eventually became involved and broke the system up.

america...

[johnjones]

Netflix has realised that basically the rest of the world is pretty profitable once you know how to cut down on fraud and keep your library as consistent as possible...

sure as a producer you can get distribution deals with large media companies (e.g. British sky or Australian foxtel ) but do you want one big bang ?

  or lots of micro payments and some big ones mixed in.... ?

Disney's approach is american centric and a train wreck of licensing sport from the start... good luck with that I'm sure those BAMTech people will be enjoying themselves on someone else's coin...

News from 2020

[Altrag]

Disney in an uproar as piracy soars. Demands Congress increases copyright protection to life of the universe + 100 years.

Re:News from 2020

[Cro Magnon]

Disney in an uproar as piracy soars. Demands Congress increases copyright protection to life of the universe + 100 years.

I thought that was a decrease!

Re:Ala-carte disaster

[Rakarra]

What - wait - I thought you couldn't afford the rising cable/satellite rates! Now you can't afford a la carte?

If you think these various streaming offerings mean that you're not going to pay a hell of a lot more for them than cable, you're a sucker.
People were open and honest with what they really wanted with the success of Netflix: they wanted everything in one nice place for a reasonable price. For a number of years that's what we got. It wasn't customers who killed this model, it was the content companies.

Re:HBO is good. Disney better not force ESPN on pe

[geekmux]

HBO is good. Disney better not force ESPN on people to get this.

and they own star wars and are going to fuck over Indy in indiana Jones 5.

In our efforts to go green, we've taken the concept of recycling a bit too far. A movie only succeeds today if it's fractured into two dozen 5-minute action sequences, stitched across a predictable story with a cast of familiar characters, all in order to guarantee an ability to regurgitate another one next year. Perhaps the death of the attention span is more to blame when catering to the simple masses.

I loved Indiana Jones. I have zero interest in seeing yet another Indy movie. Sadly, Stallone will probably be boxing soon, and Ahnold already confirmed he'll be back to killing it with robotic one-liners. The A-list of actors today reads like an AARP convention, which tends to say a lot about the value of the next generation.

I'm sure this service will be a huge hit

[DrXym]

Just like Disney Keychest and UltraViolet.

Pretty much inevitable

[LesserWeevil]

Pretty much inevitable once Netflix got into the content biz. What remains to be seen is whether Disney will court other content houses like Sony to become something people will pay for. If it's Disney content alone, I wish them luck.

With blackjack and hookers!

[TeknoHog]

In fact, forget the streaming service.

"I'm going to build my own streaming service!"

[GameboyRMH]

"With blackjack! And hookers! In fact, forget the blackjack and hookers..." - Disney

ESPN is killing Disney

[indytx]

This is really about shoring up the revenue streams. ESPN has had layoffs and major drops in revenue, and it's only going to get worse over the next several years. The whole model is changing, and C-suite types are going to get desperate.

Kind of dumb

[BlueCoder]

Disney and a bunch of the other big new content companies should create two new Netflix like companies. It shouldn't be any one production company as it is not good to have 50 major streaming sites.

Cord cutter problems

[Revek]

Soon the only place you can find all the content you want to watch will be cable.

Mwuhahahahaha

My experience with Disney Rewards...

[PortHaven]

Will ensure I NEVER sign up for their streaming service. They tried it before and failed. I'd buy movies and my points would expire before they were supposed to. Their support was horrible....

I'll buy the movies I want....but I am not paying for a Disney streaming service. And I think many others will not.

Balkanizing the streaming market has one benefit

[rickb928]

It lets these various content providers sell you the same thing again and again.

Netflix for movies and serials.
Disney for Disney and sports.
ESPN for sports.
MLBTV for sports.
Hulu for 'TV'
HBO for HBO

No one wants to develop a single streaming service, nor do they want to license to another one. They want the revenue stream direct to their wallets.

Ala carte? Not likely, unless you want to pay by the game, or episode.

And it is, after all, the money.

Not surprised

[grilled-cheese]

Disney is just doing what other distributors are doing. Sony is probably going to do the same thing to Crunchyroll before long. I at least hope that as content drops, so will pricing. When people have asked cable companies for a-la-carte channel selection, it was only supposed to be a few dollars a month. Maybe we will finally get our wish but we will have to skip the cable companies and go straight to the distributor streaming services. With that said, I'm not looking forward to having to actively manage 5+ streaming services accounts, wonder who has what, and keep up with additions and removals from their catalogs. Disney specifically has a bad reputation of cycling their content through the "Disney Vault" where it's just not available for years at a time.

Saber Rattling

[Dripdry]

Now that streaming is more popular than in 2012, I expect that Disney just wants to renegotiate and give the rights to the highest bidder.

Nope

[Cro Magnon]

Right now, I have Netflix and Hulu (ad-free). Technically, I also have Amazon, but I've never watched anything on it, mainly because I have a big backlog of stuff on the others that I haven't watched yet, and if I keep it, it won't be because of the streaming.

For Disney to get my eyeballs, it would have to beat two established competitors on content (for someone who doesn't have kids), price (when both are pretty cheap), or both, and I can't see that happening. And, no, I'm not going to have 12 streaming services for the price I pay for cable. :p

Re:Yeah. Fuck that noise.

[G00F]

They don't want old content to compete with new content.

Content is not as important as they think

[sarbonn]

One of the predictions I made some time ago was that most of the providers and creators were going to eventually hit a point where they were going to want to control the distribution. This isn't the first time this has happened, and it's probably going to happen many times in the future, because studio executives exist in a bubble world where they believe their content is a necessity rather than a desire. As more and more people realize that content creators are holding the content hostage, more and more people will just stop watching and find other pursuits to occupy their time. This has been the fear that creators have been living with for decades, and more and more executives go into this business thinking that people "need" that content rather than "want" that content. But it's always been a cost benefit analysis that decides wants vs. needs, and as more of them suppress the ability to receive content, the fewer customers they will end up having. And the way that works is when you lose customers, you often never get them back because they find other pleasure centers that fulfill any lacks thereof. This is why CBS access is failing (and now they're trying to boost it with a promise of Star Trek), and it's probably why Disney will end up suffering as well. There's a threshold people will withstand before they just abandon ship.

Oh Joy

[Meski]

Another bloody service to subscribe to. I'd sooner have one that did everything, than have to take out a sub for every producer of content.