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

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

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

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

Comments

But will Song of the South be on it?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's all anyone cares about.

Not All of Star Wars Yet

[cervesaebraciator]

It won't have the original trilogy yet. Turner holds the streaming rights until 2024.

More live action than just Mandalorians

[SuperKendall]

There are at least two live action Star Wars shows in the hopper...

I agree, that is a lot of Star Wars (and Marvel) content for a not very large price.

Escaping the Orbit

[SuperKendall]

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

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

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

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

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

Possible illegal behavior

[war4peace]

From TFA:

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

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

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