Walt Disney will provide a peek at its highly anticipated streaming service, Disney+ on 11 April at an investor meeting, according to Bloomberg.
Scheduled to debut later this year, Disney+, which seems to be a tough competitor Netflix, will include original movies and TV shows from Disney’s Marvel, Pixar and other brands. It will be the third, more family-focused streaming service, besides Disney’s existing ESPN+ and Hulu, which will soon be majorly owned by the California-based entertainment giant, Burbank.
On a recent conference call with investors, Netflix chief executive officer Reed Hastings said that except Disney others doesn’t concern him because U.S. consumers spend a billion hours a day watching video.
“They [Disney] have great content. We’re excited for their launch, and maybe they grow over a couple years to 50 million hours a day, but that’s out of the billion,” commented Hastings.
Disney is betting big time on streaming and monthly subscriptions. The House of Mouse will soon complete the $71 billion purchase of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets, which will bring in more film and TV franchises under its kitty that it can utilise in theaters, on TV and online.
After the deal was announced in late 2017, Disney reorganised its business to create a stand-alone direct-to-consumer division for streaming. Disney’s direct-to-consumer division, has lost $738 million on revenue of $3.4 billion for the fiscal year that ended on 29 September. Those numbers reflect the company’s investment in new content and technology, without the full benefit of subscription revenue from the new streaming service still in development and ESPN+, which was introduced in April.
