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Credit: TubiDisney+ subscribers are abandoning the Mouse’s paid, ad-stuffed streaming service, and a new entertainment platform is taking over the market.
The Walt Disney Company launched Disney+ in 2019 with an enormous promotional campaign, intense fan anticipation, and an initially rock-bottom price for the streaming entertainment market. In addition to exciting original Star Wars and Marvel programs like The Mandalorian and Wandavision, the service was promoted as including virtually every movie, TV show, and special that Disney had ever produced.
Related: Pixar Gives up on Disney+, Will Not Release More Movies
The service was de facto marketed as the primary competitor to Netflix, the dominant force in streaming media. But, since then, Disney+ has cost its parent company hundreds of millions of dollars and has only barely begun to theoretically turn a profit for a single fiscal quarter (news of which, ironically, sent Disney stock into a freefall).
In response, the Mouse is doing everything it can to try to make Disney+ profitable, including aggressively pushing an “ad-supported” subscription tier, cranking up the price of commercial-free subscriptions to nearly double its original offering, launching dedicated 24-hour channels and experimenting with immersive shopping experiences. Basically, Disney is throwing every idea out there and hoping that something will stick.
Disney CEO Bob Iger has publicly acknowledged the ongoing failure of the streaming service. At the MoffettNathanson Media, Internet & Communications Conference, Iger said:
“As we got into the streaming business in a very, very aggressive way, we tried to tell too many stories. Basically we invested too much, way ahead of possible returns. It’s what led to streaming ending up as a $4 billion loss.”
It turns out that Disney+ is failing to be competitive in the streaming market against more than just Netflix and subscriber expectations. According to the latest Nielsen ratings, Disney+ has been beaten by the ad-supported free content service Tubi, marking a new low for the House of Mouse.
Nielsen data reports that May 2024 was Tubi’s most-watched month ever, with the Fox Corp-owned service averaging over 1 million viewers, 46% more than May 2024. In contrast, Disney+ was reported as maintaining an average of 969,000; Tubi was also more watched in May than Peacock (owned by NBCUniversal), Max (Warner Bros. Discovery), Paramount+ (Paramount Global), Pluto TV (Paramount), and the Roku Channel.
MoffettNathanson released a new analysis (via LA Times) indicating that “Tubi continues to pull ahead from its (ad-supported video on demand) competition and post faster than expected growth.” Parent company Fox Corp also indicated that “Third-quarter revenue for Tubi grew 22% year-over-year at a time when the advertising market was sluggish.”
Related: Bob Iger Vows To Slash More Budgets, Pour Billions Into Failing Disney+
Tubi is currently the most dominant service in the free, ad-supported market and, if data indicates a trend, is likely to begin outranking more prestigious platforms like Disney+ streaming. The service describes itself as:
Tubi’s the #1 free ad-supported entertainment streamer. With the largest library in the entire streaming universe and personalized content recommendations, we’ve got it all—available on all your devices. Discover hit movies, bingeable shows, live TV, and award-winning Originals. No subscriptions. No credit cards. No fees.
At this point, it is extremely telling that Disney+ is getting trounced by not just Netflix, but by a streaming service like Tubi. It is likely that consumers are getting increasingly fed up with paying subscription fees and still having to watch ads, so why not just shift to ads with no monthly cost? The numbers aren’t lying.
What free streaming service do you watch the most? Tell us how much you are willing to pay for Disney+ in the comments below!