Credit: Inside the MagicDisney shareholders are probably not very pleased to hear that Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger is publicly admitting that Netflix is a better streaming service than their own Disney+.
Netflix has long been the most dominant force in the streaming wars since it began transitioning from a DVD-by-mail service to a streaming model in 2007. It had a good decade on its competitors in terms of building a streaming catalog of films and movies, developing technology, and acclimating subscribers to the idea that they would one day disproportionately consume media online rather than traditional linear television.
In the last five years, the Walt Disney Company has attempted to take a bite out of Netflix’s enormous market share with the Disney+ streaming service, and…it is not going so well. The company’s financial reports have revealed that the streaming service has never been profitable since it was launched in 2019, although optimistic projections say it potentially could be sometime in 2024.
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Disney+ has also been wildly pivoting its strategies to find something that will connect with consumers in the same way that massive Netflix shows like Stranger Things and Wednesday do. For a time, the company heavily promoted Marvel Studios series like WandaVision and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, only to retreat from that in the face of so-called “Marvel fatigue.” The service also tried rebooting classic Disney IPs like Willow and Turner & Hooch but canceled that content at the first sign of struggling ratings and completely purged them from Disney+.
It appears that now, more than ever, Disney CEO Bob Iger desperately wants to emulate the success of Netflix and has praised it as what Disney+ should be aspiring to in both technology and content (per Variety).
At the recent 2024 Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, Bob Iger praised Netflix and confessed that Disney+ needed to try to catch up to its rival. He said, “We need to be at [Netflix’s) level in terms of technology capability.”
The CEO continued, describing precisely how he feels Disney+ is behind Netflix, saying, “When we launched Disney+ in 2019, our goal was to have basically robust video experiences at scale. What we didn’t have was the technology that we needed to basically lower customer acquisition and retention cost, to increase engagement, to essentially grow our margins by reducing marketing expenses.”
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Both Netflix and Disney+ are currently at the forefront of figuring out how to actually make streaming profitable, including incorporating ads into content, cracking down on password sharing, and moving as much production to cheaper countries overseas, like South Korea. But it is now clear that Disney knows it is behind the competition.
As Iger puts it, “We’re now in the process of creating and developing all of that technology, and obviously, the gold standard there is Netflix.”
Do you think Disney+ will ever catch up with Netflix regarding technology and content? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!