Disney’s plan to conquer streaming has been public for a while but the pricing (a big factor in determining uptake) and availability were not yet announced. All that has changed and Disney has made some compelling revelations about their streaming service which will be available from November 12.
The company announced a US$12.99 bundle that will come not only with Disney+ but also include ESPN+ and Hulu all for the same price one would pay a standard subscription for Netflix (in the USA – in Zim it’s actually US$8.99).
The bundle is also cheaper than getting all three services separately which will run you a bill of $17.97 making it the most compelling offering unless of course, you don’t care for the any two of the three services on offer.
Whilst this is exciting news for the American market, the rest of the world will still need to understand what they get from the bundle since Hule and ESPN+ will have some content that’s licenced for some regions whilst not being available in others. This will be more of an issue for ESPN+ as the issue of sporting rights might be affected by region-specific deals more than Hulu and Disney+.
Distribution of Disney+ is also still up in the air with Disney CEO only confirming that there are parties interested in partnering with them and hinted that Apple and Amazon would be among the distributors:
We feel it’s important for us to achieve scale quickly, and we think it’s going to be an important part of that. They’re all interested in distributing the product.
Bob Iger – Disney CEO
