LOS ANGELES—A new, major player is expected to join the ranks of streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime when Disney launches its own direct-to-consumer subscription service, Disney+. According to a recent survey by The Diffusion Group, there is a solid level of interest in this new service.
The new Disney+ service is expected to offer Disney movie library titles—including classic Disney films, as well as Pixar, National Geographic, Marvel and “Star Wars” movies—Disney’s children’s TV shows and original shows and movies created for the service.
“This is a major studio pooling what is arguably the largest library of high-value content on the planet to populate a single branded subscription service,” said Michael Greeson, TDG president.
TDG surveyed adult broadband users on the likelihood they would sign up for “a Netflix-like service from Disney,” randomly assigning the respondents price points of either $5.99, $7.99 or $9.99 a month. The results found that about 43 percent of adults are various degrees of likely to sign up for the service, compared to just below 40 percent who say they in various degrees are unlikely to sign up.
“Based on our research, Disney+ will enjoy strong early demand,” Greeson concluded. “The amount of high-quality content being packed into the offering will make it not only appealing, but very sticky.”
However, the interest does seem to depend on certain scenarios. For instance, legacy pay-TV subscribers are more strongly interested in Disney+ than cord-cutters or cord-nevers; Hulu subscribers are more likely to sign for up the service than those with Netflix or Amazon Prime; age also plays a factor, as those younger than 35, or those with children under 18 and living at home, are more inclined to sign up.
TDG also views the launch of Disney+ as a testing ground for the DTC model. The service is expected to pull select content from third-party SVODs like Netflix to run exclusively on its own platform. The success or failure of this will serve as a model for if this kind of “tribalism,” as TDG puts it, can be sustained.
Disney+ is reportedly eyeing a fall 2019 launch.
