Why is Disney going to keep their Disney Plus streaming service separate from Hulu???
Why is Disney keeping ESPN Plus streaming service separate from Hulu (with hulu's massive push into live sports this year)???
It’s actually a really wise business decision to keep all these separate.
- Hulu advertising tier: this can be the dumping ground for all the mainstream network television that Disney and Fox owned, allowing them to monetize that content after broadcast
- Hulu premium: compete with Netflix for premium television, can be more mature, and allows for monetizing viewers willing to pay for ad-free.
- Disney+: obviously a different brand with content requirements, it can allow Disney to grow their brand, and monetize the most “die-hard” fans, on top of other channels.
- ESPN+: live is very important, and allows premium advertising revenues to be generated. Sports does not have much crossover with other channels, and has unique business models.
All of these allow Disney to continue making tons of money from the current cable bundles, while opening new markets and segments for monetization, all while defending against threats like Netflix, etc.
I don’t own Disney stock, but their current situation seems very considered, given the current market and where it is going. I think they have single handedly disrupted Netflix’s plan to be the new “TV”.
Agree, one thing I want to clarify:
- D+ will not host rated-R content, while Hulu will. Any R-rated original content produced or contracted by Disney will go directly to Hulu.
Less sure about the separation between Hulu's live sports play and ESPN+. It could just be a timing thing as Disney has only had a controlling stake in Hulu for a month (officially). There will likely be a lot of integration and cross over between the 2 eventually.
Netflix can't be the new "TV" in the traditional sense. The two lanes of consumption, traditional live linear and VOD (video-on-demand), have different audiences with different needs. Netflix can compete in the later but Disney is going for BOTH.
This is the right answer. It's in Disneys best interest to keep the market fragmented and force you to subscribe and pay for multiple services. The cord cutter dream of a la carte being cheaper and easier to control is dead.
It is easier to control, and it's cheaper if you don't want all of it. That's the whole point of a-la-carte. Not that it will be cheaper than a bundle if you wanted a bundle in the first place. But that you can pay for what you want. At some sub-bundle size (90%? 80%? 50%?), you'll pay less money. You'll direct your dollars towards services you actually value, rather than whatever sports entertainment commentary complex strong-armed the cable companies the most aggressively.
> market fragmented and force you to subscribe and pay for multiple services. The cord cutter dream of a la carte being cheaper and easier to control is dead.
That's exactly what "a la carte" means. It seems like what people really want is the opposite of "a la carte" service--a one-stop-shop for everything, like cable, except over the Internet.
Some people might want that, but I and many people I know don't. If you don't consume hours and hours and hours of media, then a la carte is much cheaper.
I always have thought that a surfeit of choice would have driven prices down, but maybe my movin' picture watching needs are different than most consumers (basically 100% amateur youtube at this point).
I think that one of the great ironies of on-demand media is just how much stuff is locked up by rights holders and is unavailable. The Disneys and Netflixes of the world make remarkably small catalogs available. You should see some of the libraries that tv stations have sitting on the shelf.
Maybe it's just that a serious change in format and/or delivery always loses 90% of the previous material. It's funny how few LPs made it to CD.
> but maybe my movin' picture watching needs are different than most consumers (basically 100% amateur youtube at this point).
You're absolutely not alone and the fragmented ecosystem companies are building will accumulate interest. A lot of potential viewers will never be exposed to content due to fragmentation, and without a critical mass of subscribers, "must-see" content will never grow organically.
> I always have thought that a surfeit of choice would have driven prices down
Choice only drives priced down when it is choice between options which are actually substitutes for each other. What is instead happening is that the uniquely attractive franchises that people are interest in and not willing to substitute for something else are getting distributed over more different offerings, which isn't really competition in the sense that drives down prices much.
Price should stay down if you look at it as substitutes.
You can rotate your National Amusement(Viacom/CBS/Paramount), Disney/Fox/Hulu, Comcast/UniversalNBC, Sony, ATT/DirecTV/WB/Turner/HBO, Netflix accounts. They arent a contract. You have the incumbents (Disney, NA, Sony, Comcast, ATT, Verizon) vs the tech giants (Netflix, Apple, Google, Facebook.) One thing to notice is that Sony, Disney, and NA are now the odd ones out not owning an ISP. You buy one for a month each, cancel, switch to the next one.
It ends up being a LOT cheaper than cable if you rotate, and probably more expensive if you decide you need all channels at all times. The ability to rotate through them is a huge plus over cable/satellite.
Throw everything as add-ons into the Hulu app (which already has this for HBO etc) and you can charge exactly the same, but the user experience is way better than hopping between apps).
Shame that they're going to be totally separate ones. Seems purely branding, especially around "disney app" being more family friendly than a "Hulu app with just disney package."
Yes spinning the same content out into more services with smaller catalogs that each cost as much as the old large-catalog service is a verion of a la carte, but its a version that illustrates (rather than contradicts) that the vision of a la carte as cheaper is dead (or perhaps more accurately was always a pipe dream.)
Is each individual catalog not cheaper than some massive catalog subscription? Or do you think that it is somehow possible to offer all of their content for $10/mn?
> Is each individual catalog not cheaper than some massive catalog subscription?
No, individual streaming service prices are mostly constant or edging up over time as catalogs shrink and more content owners set up their own exclusive siloed services.
I subscribe to HBO, ShowTime, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, have an antenna. I pay less then half the amount I was paying to DirectTv. So it's not even close to dead.
Branding. With the Fox deal, Disney now owns multiple
Networks (FX, FXX,etc), a ton of studios that make content, and huge back catalogs of content that is all super popular and valuable but is not aligned with the traditional Disney brand. Think: The Simpsons, Family Guy, The American Horror story series, etc.
Id argue that Fox is a better brand than Hulu. As long as their trademark for "Fox Cable Networks" allows them to use the word FOX, they would be better off with a dual branded app. Or make Hulu the portal that allows you to buy/manage your Disney+/Fox/ESPN/ABC subscriptions.
The thing to remember about hulu is a TON of hardware remotes have a physical Hulu button. You wouldnt want to lose that kind of placement without remapping it to a new app.
I think the Fox News brand has probably rendered the rest of the Fox brand somewhat undesirable. At a minimum it's just too quickly associated with politics and divisiveness to use for entertainment products that are meant to be a pleasurable diversion.
I doubt rest of the world knows a lot about Fox News. Plus around half of the US doesn't mind Fox News. And half of the rest know Fox is separate entity than Fox News.
Knows a lot? Probably not. Knows enough to disapprove of it? I'd say so. Especially when limited to the market of people interested in buying American video content.
Disagree on that as well. There is going to more exposure for local channels with Fox in their names along with 20th Century Fox logo that comes on before movies.
Could it be that it can bring Disney Plus everywhere (I assume they have distribution rights on their own media), while Hulu is a mishmash of content rights, and still hasn't made it to Canada?
It might also be branding - Disney wants everything Disney to scream DISNEY, as opposed to Hulu content.
One of the benefits sold to shareholders for Disney buying all of Hulu was that it potentially makes it easier for Disney as guiding force to negotiate international rights on all the Hulu content and make Hulu an international brand. Though how much of that is spin and will actually happen is a leftover question.
I would imagine so. Disney's biggest deals seem to have been with Hulu, so owning that outright gives it a lot of power to change deals, and with Netflix, which presumably part of the timing that Disney+ won't roll out until Fall is that coincides I believe with the expiration of the biggest of Disney's streaming licenses to Netflix (the one for access to films). (The Defenders MCU shows exclusive contract to Netflix I think will still take a few more years to expire before Disney can bring them "home".)
Disney Plus will be an add on to Hulu. It will have only the stuff a lot of people see as premium.
Look at Netflix. There’s no way to tell where any particular show fits without looking into it. Netflix needs some kind of sub branding to slit out the different niches of shows. Disney is going to get that out of the gate. And they will let just subxniches of people subscribe to just the part they want.
That does appear to be the plan, keep the Disney (+) brand entirely family friendly (up to the PG-13 of Star Wars and Marvel) and let Hulu house all of the more mature stuff or stuff not traditionally associated with the Disney brand (such as the back catalogs of Fox's brands, Touchstone, Miramax, Buena Vista).
It also sounds from PR that despite taking control of Hulu, Disney also has interest in Hulu remaining their Live TV offering for non-Disney channels, and that Disney would still like Hulu to be a welcome home for what Time Warner and NBC Universal content it can continue to license, though that will probably start to get weird in coming years. It probably would still be in Disney's interests that Hulu seem a "neutral" or "cable" brand, especially given the actual cable infrastructure that AT&T (Time Warner) and Comcast (NBC Universal) directly control.
Im not saying it is or isnt the plan, but weve only really seen it as the plan from the press speculating. Disney hasnt really come out and said what IT wants to do with hulu. A year ago, Iger said they were going to continue to fuel it with content. Everything else is conjecture.
That's fair, it's all mostly going to be conjecture until we see actions in the Fall. I tried to couch my wording as what I've read and how it sounds in between the lines of shareholder reports and generic statements that could be taken either way until we see action.
If money is speech, Disney has been talking a lot in how much money it has spent on both the Disney+ project and the Hulu buyout. But speech of the money will always be a bit of reading the tea leaves and the color of the wind.
Indications to shareholders are that Disney expects to make Hulu an international brand.
Also, Disney seems to have renewed Hulu's exclusive contracts for Cloak & Dagger and The Runaways, so it sounds like Disney is very prepared to take a "split" approach to Marvel with Hulu being home to an interesting subset of Marvel properties. It does sound like R-rated films like Deadpool will be on Hulu rather than Disney+, at least based on conjecture so far.
(I also wouldn't be surprised if all of the Fox X-Men stuff ended up at Hulu rather than Disney+, rather than confuse young fans of the current MCU. It may be Disney makes the dividing line be the "Marvel Studios" brand, of which the Fox films were not. But of course that remains to be seen.)
This is why Disney started the Touchstone Pictures label in the 1980s, so it would hardly be unprecedented for the company to maintain separate streaming brands for family and mature content.
>>> Disney sees Hulu as a key pillar in its direct-to-consumer strategy, serving as a home to more adult-oriented entertainment fare alongside the upcoming Disney Plus (launching in November in the U.S.) and the ESPN Plus sports package. Disney says it’s likely the trio of streaming services will be bundled together at a discount at some point.
