Coming soon from a galaxy far, far away: Disney takes on Netflix in UK - MW

Disney will mark its participation in the European streaming wars this week by announcing its Disney + service during an exciting promotional event.

The entertainment giant seeks to challenge the dominance of Netflix and Amazon, Prime Prime, and at its own event Thursday will reveal a formidable repository of content. That includes the $ 100 million spin-off series from Star Wars The Mandalorian, Pixar like Toy Story and the favorite family like Frozen 2 - content that he hopes will be convincing enough for consumers to ignore. another streaming service.

In order to attract subscribers, Disney has reduced its competitive price by 17% to £ 49.99 for annual subscriptions, which will be available until consumers launch in the UK and much of Europe Western on 24. In March, Disney + is significantly cheaper than Netflix, which charges £ 7.99 per month for the most popular package and Prime Video, which costs £ 79 per year.

With the surprise announcement that CEO Bob Iger - who has successfully run Disney for decades and is a Disney + missionary - will step back and become president, the company needs to maintain its momentum. successfully developed in Europe.

Disney should start with a noisy start in Europe when it launched on Palestinian fuel in the United States last year. The company reached 10 million registrations on the first day and 26.5 million after three months, a figure that Netflix took 5 years to reach.

But despite owning some of the most successful franchises in history - the Marvel movies, from Iron Man to Avengers: Endgame, grossed $ 22.5 billion ($ 17.5 billion), Star. Wars adds $ 10 billion - it will take Disney time to build a library of Netflix challenges.

In the short term, it's certain that the first months of its launch, Disney + will work well in Europe, according to Jonathan, Jonathan Broughton, chief analyst at Media Business Insight. Disney The challenge for Disney will be to keep going. It was expected that a wave of premium content would land at launch, but now it will take some time before the next batch. They don't have many people ready to go and consumers have a high demand for new, high-quality content.

Disney's premiere figures have been flattered by a US deal for customers of Verizon's telecom operators to get one-year free service. And after starting to excel, growth has slowed considerably, with the total number of subscribers rising to 28.6 million on February 3. The company is targeting 60 to 90 million subscribers by 2024, when they should break even, while Netflix has more than 160 million worldwide, including more than 12 million in the United Kingdom.

The world's largest entertainment company, with a market value of $ 213 billion, has the potential to pose the toughest challenge for Netflix since the start of the future of streaming more than a decade ago. Disney spends $ 24 billion on its film and television empire, including about $ 7.6 billion in sports rights for ESPN. Spending on making original shows for Disney +, including Tom Hiddleston recreating his Marvel role on the big screen in the hit series Loki, will drop from $ 1 billion to $ 2.5 billion. annual dollars by 2024. Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, said it is expected to increase annual spending by $ 15 billion to maintain its position. Amazon spends about $ 7 billion a year.

Disney was also faced with the problem of trying to extract some of the license agreements it had. For example, The Simpsons, which Disney controlled after a $ 71 billion contract to buy Rupert Murdoch's fox last year, is used in the United States, but Britain's first rights will remain with Sky, which is now owned by Comcast, in the near future. The Disney films are also licensed for Sky: this agreement will expire this year and the two companies should announce a non-exclusive agreement for Disney + to be available on the Sky Sky platform.

As the streaming market becomes crowded, many expect weary viewers to reach the heights of television. Analysts believe customers will handle payment for five major services, also if some streaming services offer a bundled option, as Netflix does with Sky.

With more and more competition, there is certainly a tiring inscription. Is Disney + able to create a central “must watch” group, regardless of the end of these subscriptions? I will say that in the end, yes, they will.

MW