Disney has never been shy about making money. Between the company’s enormous global revenue and its commitment to monetizing every halfway-beloved IP in the pop culture cosmos, it can safely be said that Disney has a thing for business. So why are company insiders considering making some Disney+ streaming content available free, gratis, and for nothing?
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The short answer is “somebody else did it first, and they’re eating Disney’s lunch.” Streaming services across the marketplace are losing a steady stream of customers to free services. YouTube, in particular, is picking up a growing share of viewers looking to escape from the increasingly fraught schedules and payment schemes of subscription-based streamers. That’s why many viewers ditched TV for streaming; now they’re ditching streaming for video hosts. What does Disney+ plan to do about it? According to a new report from Business Insider, Disney+ could be set for its most radical change since launch, and you won’t have to pay a cent for it.
Disney+ Could Woo New Viewers and Advertisers With Free Tier, New Formats
The Disney+ free tier is still very much in the brainstorming stage. The closest thing to an official mention it’s received to date is a few minutes of discussion from product chief Adam Smith at a recent internal town hall. Per Business Insider and other sources, the free tier would follow the model of services like Tubi and the Roku Channel, delivering no-fee content supported by more frequent ads. That approach could bring in viewers leery of long-term subscriptions and open up new partnerships with advertisers interested in reaching viewers of free content. Free services tend to invest in sheer volume of content (Tubi added 177 movies and TV shows this month); that model makes sense for the gigantic Disney+ library.
Disney+ is clearly committed to growing its audience through innovation. The service has started to explore vertical video. Rumor has also suggested it may follow Netflix’s lead in broadening its content model. Netflix has experimented with TikTok-style shorts and short-form content over the past few years, with uneven but promising results. Disney could follow suit.
Streaming Services Need New Viewers, Try New Models
The success of ad-supported streaming services has happened quickly and motivated meaningful investment. Nielsen reports the top 3 free streamers, YouTube, Tubi, and Roku, represented almost 20% of TV viewing in April of this year. YouTube’s 13.4% share is by far the biggest slice of that pie, but media companies are interested in all of the above: Fox is Tubi’s parent company and has already expressed interest in acquiring the Roku Channel.
Recent business challenges may be driving Disney+ to seek new streaming revenue. Disney recently responded to cratering viewership on Hulu by merging that service with Disney+, letting viewers use Disney+ logins to access both services. There have been ongoing issues syncing that service with popular subscription bundles, leaving viewers with awkward service and membership conflicts. A free ad-supported tier available to everyone could be a solution to those woes.
What do you think? Would you suffer through a few ads for free Disney+? What new stuff do you want to see on the service: vertical video, short-form takes, user-created content? Comment below and join the conversation at the ComicBook.com forum!
