November 9th, 2023 at 2:45 p.m. by Sara Petzold – Disney is deviating from its strategy of not licensing its own films and series for other streaming services. However, agreements made with Netflix and other providers categorically exclude certain well-known franchises.
After Disney initially announced that it wanted to make all of its own content such as films and series available exclusively on Disney+, the company is now changing this strategy – albeit with restrictions. In a current quarterly report from the company, Disney boss Bob Iger explained that the company was offering part of its own streaming catalog to Netflix, among others, for licensing.
Disney+ subscription numbers continue to rise
However, particularly strong Disney house brands such as Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar and Disney itself are excluded from this. This is a competitive advantage that Disney+ enjoys over its competitors and the basis of Disney’s future streaming business.
Instead of Marvel, Star Wars and Co., Disney primarily wants to make content from its own star portfolio available to other services. These include productions from the US television channel Fox, which in turn is under Disney’s patronage. However, users should not expect that brand new series and new seasons will be shown on Netflix, for example, in addition to Disney Plus – Disney’s licensing offers are probably limited to older titles.
Meanwhile, Disney+ is again recording an increase in the number of subscribers, which is probably due, among other things, to the start of the advertising subscription: a total of around 6.9 million new users were added in the last quarter, including 2 million with advertising subscriptions. This means that Disney+ currently has a total number of subscribers of 112.6 million (including 5.2 million with advertising subscriptions). That’s still a long way from the numbers of Netflix’s competitors (247.15 million, of which 15 million have advertising subscriptions), but Disney is currently not (yet) taking as rigorous action against account sharing as Netflix is doing.
Source: Golem
