Disney+ will start cracking down on password sharing in a few countries in June and will roll out the measures globally in September, following in the footsteps of Netflix. Users breaking the rules will receive warnings, and an option to pay extra to share accounts with those in different households will be offered. The crackdown aims to boost sign-ups and revenue, with Disney's CEO Bob Iger expressing admiration for Netflix's success. Disney+ previously announced changes to pricing in the UK, including a cheaper tier with adverts, after facing a decline in international customers.
Disney CEO Bob Iger announced plans to launch their first real foray into password sharing in June, starting in a few countries before a full rollout in September. The company introduced anti-password sharing rules earlier for new subscribers and will prompt suspected improper sharers to sign up for their own subscription. The crackdown aims to boost profitability in the streaming business and increase engagement through tools like recommendation engines. Disney aims to reach double-digit margins in streaming, echoing efforts seen in Netflix's successful crackdown on password sharing.
(Reuters) -Walt Disney's streaming service will start cracking down on password-sharing from June, CEO Bob Iger said on Thursday, as the entertainment conglomerate looks to boost subscriber growth and make the business profitable. Iger also signaled a need for consolidation in the streaming industry and said Disney was "eventually" looking at double-digit margins for the business, in a wide-ranging interview with CNBC. Streaming rival Netflix's password-sharing crackdown had helped it add nearly 22 million subscribers in the second half of 2023 and shatter Wall Street expectations. Iger's interview came just a day after Disney investors backed him and other company directors in a proxy battle with activist investors, including Nelson Peltz , who argued that the Mouse House had underperformed in the streaming-television era. "The proxy vote was a decisive, true endorsement of the board," he said, noting the company was taking the topic of CEO succession - a key concern of shareholders - "very seriously".
Disney CEO Bob Iger announced plans to crack down on password-sharing for their streaming service starting in June to boost subscriber growth and profitability. Disney aims for double-digit margins in the streaming industry. Investors backed Iger amidst criticism, strengthening his position. Additionally, a standalone ESPN streaming service is set to launch in 2025 with live sports, studio shows, and immersive experiences. The service will offer more content than the current ESPN+ platform. Disney's suite of streaming services is expected to reach profitability by the end of the fiscal year.
Disney+ is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming media service owned and operated by Disney Streaming, the streaming division of Disney Entertainment, a major business segment of the Walt Disney Company. The service primarily distributes films and television shows produced by Walt Disney Studios and Disney Television Studios, with dedicated content hubs for Disney's flagship brands; Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, and Hulu as well as showcasing original and exclusive films and television shows.Disney+ relies on technology developed by Disney Streaming, which was originally established as BAMTech in 2015 when it was spun off from MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM). Disney increased its ownership share of BAMTech to a controlling stake in 2017 and subsequently transferred ownership to Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International, as part of a corporate restructuring in anticipation of Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox, through which the Star brand was inherited and got retooled as a content platform within the service in some regions, with Latin America having its own standalone service, Star+. With BAMTech helping to launch ESPN+ in early 2018, and Disney's streaming distribution deal with Netflix ending in 2019, Disney took the opportunity to use technologies being developed for ESPN+ to establish a Disney-branded streaming service that would feature its content. Production of films and television shows for exclusive release on the platform began in late 2017.Disney+ was launched on November 12, 2019, in the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands, and expanded to Australia, New Zealand, and Puerto Rico a week later. It became available in select European countries in March 2020 and in India in April through Star India's Hotstar streaming service, which was rebranded as Disney+ Hotstar. Additional European countries received Disney+ in September 2020, with the service expanding to Latin America in November 2020. It later expanded in Southeast Asian countries since 2021, followed by countries in Northern and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and parts of Africa since May 2022.Upon launch, it was met with positive reception of its content library, but was criticized for technical problems and missing content. Alterations made to films and television shows also attracted media attention. Ten million users had subscribed to Disney+ by the end of its first day of operation.
Disney+ Hotstar is an Indian subscription video-on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Disney Star, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment business segment of The Walt Disney Company, featuring domestic Indian film, television and sports content for India itself and its worldwide diaspora. It also includes imported content from and serves Southeast Asia as well.The brand was introduced as Hotstar for a streaming service carrying content from Disney Star's local networks, including films, television series, live sports, and original programming, as well as featuring content licensed from third parties such as Showtime among others. Amid the significant growth of mobile broadband in India, Hotstar quickly became the dominant streaming service in the country.Following the acquisition of Star India's parent company 21st Century Fox by Disney in 2019, Hotstar was integrated with the company's new global streaming brand Disney+ as 'Disney+ Hotstar' in April 2020. The co-branded service added Disney+ original programming, and films and television series from its main content brands of Walt Disney Studios, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and National Geographic alongside the domestic and third-party content already carried on the platform.Outside of India, the Disney+ Hotstar service also operates in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, where it similarly combines entertainment content licensed from local, third-party studios, with the larger Disney+ library. In Singapore, Canada, and the United Kingdom, Hotstar operates as a streaming service targeting Indian diaspora, focusing on Disney Star's domestic entertainment and sports content; Disney+ operates as a standalone service in these markets. In 2021, Disney announced that it would discontinue the U.S. version of Hotstar in November 2021, in favor of adding its content to the domestic Hulu and ESPN+ services instead.
Disney Channel is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney Entertainment division of The Walt Disney Company.Launched on April 18, 1983, under the name The Disney Channel as a premium channel on top of basic cable television systems, it originally showcased programming towards families due to availability of home television sets locally at the time. Since 1997, as just Disney Channel, its programming has shifted focus to target mainly children and adolescents between ages 7 and 17. The channel showcases original first-run children's television series, theatrically-released and original television films and other selected third-party programming.As of September 2022, Disney Channel is available on basic cable and satellite in over 190 million American and global homes. Original programming/content on/from the channel spans television, online, mobile, video on demand and mobile platforms, with the latter dominated by the DisneyNOW website-app hybrid product. There were 46 Disney Channels available in 33 languages worldwide, but some have either shut down or declined in viewership since 2016 in parts of Europe and most of the Asia-Pacific due to the rise of social media and streaming media platforms as well as the successful launch of Disney+ in certain countries/regions/territories from 2020 onward.
Disney Entertainment is a major business segment of The Walt Disney Company created on February 8, 2023, which consists of its entertainment media and content businesses, including its motion picture film studios, television divisions, streaming services and overseas businesses. Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution (DMED) was dissolved and had its divisions and units consolidated into Disney Entertainment upon formation of the latter.
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney ( DIZ-nee), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate that is headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy Disney as Disney Brothers Studio; it also operated under the names Walt Disney Studio and Walt Disney Productions before changing its name to the Walt Disney Company in 1986. In 1928, Disney established itself as a leader in the animation industry with the short film Steamboat Willie. The film used synchronized sound to become the first post-produced sound cartoon, and popularized Mickey Mouse, who became Disney's mascot and corporate icon.After becoming a major success by the early 1940s, Disney diversified into live-action films, television, and theme parks in the 1950s. However, following Walt Disney's death in 1966, the company's profits, especially in the animation division, began to decline. In 1984, Disney's shareholders voted Michael Eisner as CEO, who led a reversal of the company's decline through a combination of international theme park expansion and the highly successful Disney Renaissance period of animation in the 1990s. In 2005, under new CEO Bob Iger, the company continued to expand into a major entertainment conglomerate with the acquisitions of Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and 20th Century Studios. In 2020, Bob Chapek became the head of Disney after Iger's retirement. However, Chapek was ousted in 2022 and Iger was reinstated as CEO.The company is known for its film studio division Walt Disney Studios, which includes Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, 20th Century Animation, and Searchlight Pictures. Disney's other main business units include divisions in television, broadcasting, streaming media, theme park resorts, consumer products, publishing, and international operations. Through these divisions, Disney owns and operates the ABC television network; cable television networks such as Disney Channel, ESPN, Freeform, FX, and National Geographic; publishing, merchandising, music, and theater divisions; direct-to-consumer streaming services such as Disney+, Star+, ESPN+, Hulu, and Hotstar; and Disney Experiences, which includes several theme parks, resort hotels, and cruise lines around the world.Disney is one of the biggest and best-known companies in the world, and has been ranked number 53 on the 2022 Fortune 500 list of biggest companies in the United States by revenue. In 2023, the company’s seat in Forbes Global 2000 was 87. Since its founding, the company has won 135 Academy Awards, 26 of which have been awarded to Walt. The company has been said to have produced some of the greatest films of all time, as well as revolutionizing the theme park industry. The company, which has been public since 1940, trades on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with ticker symbol DIS and has been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since 1991. In August 2020, about two-thirds of the stock was owned by large financial institutions. The company celebrated their 100th anniversary on October 16, 2023.
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