Details on Disney Plus, Disney’s long-awaited standalone streaming service, are finally here. In an Investor Day livestream on Thursday evening, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed that the new service will launch on November 12, 2019 at a price of $6.99 per month, or at the discounted rate of $69.99 when paid yearly (which comes out to $5.83 per month.)
Many are wondering what the entrance of a media titan like Disney, with vast resources and a huge content catalogue, means for the streaming wars. Disney already offers the sports-focused streaming service ESPN Plus and, thanks to the recent acquisition of 21st Century Fox, owns a majority stake in Hulu, making the company well-equipped to enter the crowded streaming market with full force.
How does this fair for Netflix, the service that revolutionized the streaming landscape and stands in the most direct competition to Disney Plus? When Disney’s service was announced, Netflix subscribers worried that Disney would yank its content off of the platform, which proved to be sort of true. The agreement that Netflix and Disney signed back in 2012 guarantees that Netflix will retain streaming rights to Disney titles released in 2016, 2017, and 2018 through at least the end of 2019. Films from 2019 and beyond will appear exclusively on Disney Plus, alongside new original series and the entire Disney motion picture library.
Still, Iger has indicated that Disney Plus isn’t poised to replace Netflix or any other major streaming service. In a 2017 investor call, he said that the pricing would be “substantially below Netflix because we’ll have substantially less volume.”
We now know that Disney Plus will cost about half as much as Netflix, whose standard plans were recently raised to $12.99 per month. (A cheaper $8.99 per month subscription is available without HD streaming; a premium 4K plan is $15.99 per month.)
Disney Plus more closely resembles a Hulu or Amazon Prime add-on than a Netflix alternative. Most major streaming platforms offer extra features for an additional monthly cost, including premium channels like HBO. In Thursday’s livestream, chairman of direct-to-consumer and international, Kevin Mayer, hinted that Disney is “likely to bundle [its streaming services, Hulu, Disney Plus and ESPN Plus] at a discounted price.” Disney Plus, then, seems more like another premium extra.