Disney, Warner Bros. Dive Into Streaming Market

After months of anticipation and waiting, Walt Disney Co.’s streaming service has finally arrived. Called Disney+, the service from the Burbank entertainment and media giant goes live for U.S. subscribers on Nov. 12. And not to be upstaged, executives with WarnerMedia held a presentation at the Warner Bros. Studios lot on Oct. 29 to discuss the new HBO Max streaming service to launch in May with 10,000 hours of programming. Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger, speaking at an investor day event in April, said the content Disney will offer in its streaming service is a foundation that no other content or technology company can rival. “This is an exciting time, but it’s also a challenging time,” Iger said. “The pace of change is extraordinary, and the dynamism of the marketplace is both powerful and permanent.” Tuna Amobi, senior equity analyst who covers Disney at CFRA Research in New York, called Disney+ a potentially revolutionary offering because of how the company is going all in and pulling its content off competing streamer Netflix Inc. With a starting price of $6.99, Disney+ is resetting the bar and now the streaming wars are going to intensify, Amobi said. “At $6.99 a month that service is meant to appeal to a broad audience and the content offering at launch looks to be quite robust,” he added. “My sense is they are going to be adding to the content over time and also planning on launching that service internationally over the next couple of years. It is going to be a global roll out.” Disney+ will launch in Western Europe plus in the Asian Pacific territories in the first two quarters of the current 2020 fiscal year. Rollout to Eastern Europe and to Latin America begins in the first quarter of the 2021 fiscal year. Disney projects a global subscriber base of 60 million to 90 million by fiscal 2024, which is also when the streaming service is expected to break even. “It is a wide range but the way we are seeing this market develop, I think it is quite achievable,” Amobi said of the subscription figures. In comparison, AT&T Inc., the parent of WarnerMedia, has forecast a global subscription of 75 million to 90 million for HBO Max by the end of 2025. In addition to Disney and WarnerMedia, Apple Inc. launched its streaming service Apple TV+ on Nov. 1, while NBCUniversal will have its Peacock streaming service debuting in April with 15,000 hours of legacy and original programming as well as feature films from Universal Studios, DreamWorks Animation, Focus Features and Illumination. Other existing streaming services include CBS All Access, Facebook Watch, YouTube TV and Hulu, owned by Disney. “It is getting to be quite crowded,” Amobi said but added that even with new streaming services coming online, none will likely be “a Netflix killer.” But what makes Disney’s streaming service unique is that the company arguably has the most robust content pipeline. Disney+ will include content from Disney, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel Studios and National Geographic. Among the original series to appear on the service when it launches this month are “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” and “The Mandalorian,” a “Star Wars” spinoff. Marvel Studios series will begin airing in the summer starting with “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.” “They are really coming out with a bang but there’s going to be some initial transitional period that will be consistent with the forecast that they have put out,” Amobi said. Financially, the service is bound to see losses the first few years. Already costs associated with its launch have contributed to the increase in the operating loss of the Direct-to-Consumer & International division of Disney in the third quarter. “Most analysts see the initial ramp up phase over the next two to three years,” Amobi said. For Disney, by taking its content off Netflix and putting it all at Disney+, shows a major change in their strategy. Already they have invested heavily in sports streaming network ESPN+, which launched last year, Amobi continued. “All indications are that Disney+ will be a transformational offering in the streaming marketplace not just because Disney is behind it but because of the way that the streaming landscape has been shaping up,” he added.