Disney raises price of Disney+ to $13.99 and will block account sharing
Disney is increasing the price of its Disney+ streaming service, as well as that of Hulu, in the coming months. The company plans to charge 13.99 USD for an ad-free Disney+ plan in the United States, which is a 3 USD increase for that plan. The company announced no plans to increase the price of the ad-powered plan, which remains at $7.99 for the time being,
At Hulu, Disney announced a price increase to $17.99 per month, which is a 20% increase. The ad-powered plan remains at $7.99 though.
Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed the price increase during yesterday's earnings call, stating that the media giant didn't see a "significant churn or loss of subs" in 2022, when it raised the price of Disney+ for the first time from the initial 6.99 USD. While Iger made no mention of price increases in other regions, it is likely that pricing will be adjusted in all supported regions in the coming months.
Disney+, which started out with an introductory offer of 6.99 USD, is almost reaching Netflix price levels with the coming increase. At 13.99 USD, it is closing in on Netflix's 15.49 USD per month and Discovery's Max $15.99 per month.
The streaming service's ad-supported tier has now about 3.3 million subscribers in the United States alone. Iger revealed that roughly 40% of new signups select the advertising-supported tier. Disney is not the only company that is prioritizing its ad-supported plans over ad-free plans; Netflix, for instance, started to drop the cheapest ad-free plan in select regions recently. Keeping the price of the ad-supported plan stable, it seems likely that its attraction will rise even more when the price change lands.
The company is in desperate need for money, as its streaming division lost 512 million USD in the third-quarter alone. The service has 105.7 million subscribers according to Iger. The price increase will hit Disney+ in the United States on October 12, 2023.
Iger revealed that Disney plans to do something against account sharing as well starting in 2024. No further details were provided at the time, but it could be that Disney is using Netflix's playbook to prevent password sharing by limiting viewing to households or adding paid extra slots to plans to increase viewing options.
Closing Words
Disney almost doubled the price of its streaming service Disney+ since it launched it in 2019. Whether the service is worth the money is an individual decision. Disney hopes that the upcoming price increase won't have too much of a negative effect on subscriber numbers. Some may switch to the ad-supported tier as a consequence.
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Disney stock is buoyed by the MSM putting out stories about Apple potentially buying Disney.
Once it becomes apparent that Apple will NOT buy Disney, Disney stock will tumble to it’s real value and Disney will lose BILLIONS in market cap (on top of the billions it’s already lost).
Then Kathleen Kennedy will finally be fired, after the investors force out the current Disney board, CEO, etc.
Decreased demand plus raised prices leads to further demand decreases. You then have to raise prices again to make up for the shortfall which leads to further demand decreases, etc., etc. Its called the death spiral. And yes, the wokeness in the product has been a contributing factor in the boring movies they have been turning out with increasing regularity. Strident ideological propaganda and mass entertainment seldom work well together.
Disney deserves this.
Shiver Me Timbers!
I could just unsubscribed from all Stream services and just not watch any of their content at all or pirate the stuff I’m actually interested in. Funny how enshittification is okay as long as shareholders get their money.
I am not surprised that the Mouse is raising prices. Shareholders are well aware that many of Disney’s premier movies have absolutely bombed at the box office. Whether it’s woke-ness in the Disney product, or inflation, or fears of large groups since Covid. Whatever it is….
Disney isn’t really making hits these days, they are taking them.
Another anti-consumer L, these companies copy cat each other on bad practices, people need to mass unsub from these services and then and only then till they learn this shit is a no go and will stop with limitting accounts and price increases.
Disney is certainly making bad business decisions these days. You don’t raise rates on the results showing you lost a ton of subscribers. Its obvious many already didn’t see the value in the current rate. Also, how is Disney losing money on basically distributing their own content??
You pay actors, rights, writers etc even if you distribute your own content. So you can be at a loss and Disney revenue is at loss the last quarters. They started to bleed money. So.. they will do what Netflix did to stop bleeding money. Less content, remove older content from Disney+, raise prices and fight account sharing. It worked for Netflix, so they will try to do the same. A higher number of subscribers (because they pay royalties for every subscriber even if they own the content) means nothing if they bleed money.
The way streaming services is going this days. Makes me want to go back to the old days of Torrenting.
look up stremio and how to add the right addons . it will change your life.
Cord-cutting, over-the-air broadcasts are so easy on the wallet and liberating.