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Credit: Inside the MagicDisney is shutting down numerous streaming apps and effectively charging customers double to watch popular shows like Bluey and Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures, as well as hit original movies like Descendants: The Rise of Red.
Disney: Losing the Streaming Wars
The Walt Disney Company dived headfirst into the streaming wars in 2019 when it launched Disney+, the app that it intended to be its big challenge to Netflix. Despite starting out strong with a huge initial wave of subscribers and critically acclaimed content like The Mandalorian and WandaVision, the Mouse has not been able to make streaming into a consistently profitable part of its empire.
The popularity of Disney+ was originally boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic (which also devastated the company’s box office revenues) and its original subscription price.
The streaming service was initially offered at $6.99 a month, which was advertised as including virtually every piece of Disney content ever produced, along with the massive IP catalogs of Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, Pixar, National Geographic, and more.
The party didn’t last for long. In the five years since it debuted, Disney+ has never managed to beat Netflix in terms of subscriber numbers, hours viewed, or churn rate (i.e., the number of current subscribers who let their accounts lapse).
The app has faced heavy competition from other premium services like MAX (Warner Bros. Discovery), Amazon Prime Video, Paramount+, Peacock (NBCUniversal), and Apple TV+, as well as free streamers like Tubi and Pluto TV.
Related: Disney+ Password Crackdown To Begin Imminently, Disney Confirms
In response, Disney has doubled the price of its flagship streaming app, loaded it with increasingly inescapable advertisements, and bailed out its continuing financial losses with the profits from ESPN+ (which is running into some problems itself).
CEO Bob Iger even admitted, upon his return to company leadership, that they had entered into the streaming wars 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.”
Disney has been desperately trying to figure out how to turn the black hole of streaming losses into a revenue source. Its most recent move has been to shut down numerous popular free apps, including the DisneyNOW app, Freeform, FXNOW, ABC, and National Geographic. These are known as “TV Everywhere” apps, meaning they provide access to both streaming and linear TV content from a paid cable subscription.
“No Longer Be Available on Mobile Devices and Connected TVs”
The Apple App Store currently has shutdown notice for all of the free apps that Disney is shutting down, all along the lines of “As of September 23, 2024, the DisneyNOW app will no longer be available on mobile devices and connected TVs. For more, visit DisneyNOW.com.”
Freeform, FXNOW, ABC, and National Geographic all feature content from their respective cable channels, while the DisneyNOW app includes shows, movies, and live TV from the Disney Channel, Disney Junior, and Disney XD, as well as exclusive games and shorts curated for younger viewers. According to notices, the former apps will only be available on websites rather than being accessible via devices.
This is clearly a policy move to force DisneyNOW app users to subscribe to Disney+ and/or Hulu if they want to continue to be able to access their favorite Disney content on their TVs or smart devices.
Given that families with small children will be particularly likely to be accustomed to their usual viewing habits and less likely to sign into more cumbersome websites, this feels like another price-gouging attempt to boost the value of Disney+ by restricting access to its most popular TV and shows elsewhere.
It is particularly noticeable that the DisneyNOW website and app (for now) heavily promote mega-popular shows like the Australian series Bluey and the Lucasfilm animated series Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures.
It is clear that DisneyNow has been used to promote these shows but is now being shut down, so the only app that streams them will be the one that currently costs a whopping $13.99 a month (without ads). As of October 17, that price will be raised to $15.99 a month.
Related: Disney+ Subscribers May Lose Hulu Streaming Services, Purchase in Jeopardy
Notably, DisneyNOW is promoted by the Mouse as a “free” service because it is offered as part of a paid TV service, such as a cable or satellite package. Up until this point, DisneyNOW has not cost subscribers anything extra because they paid for it along with their cable; now, in order to access it via streaming, they will have to pay again to have a Disney+ subscription.
While the company can try to frame it however it wants, there is no escaping that it is attempting to take advantage of consumer desire for convenience and confusion between multiple different forms of media.
There is also no indication whether or not DisneyNOW (and the other soon-to-shut apps) will have any of their exclusive content or shows ported over to Disney+ or whether they will eventually be deleted to save on royalty costs. Social media audiences are already getting concerned about this probability. @drewlymadlydply posted on Twitter:
“Sort of, but also still not really! The website will remain, there’s no news of anything shifting to Disney+, no news of any reduction in what they stream on DisneyNow.com, and based on “shut down” notice on DisneyNow and NatGeo app, still no transfer of “next day” eps”
Sort of, but also still not really! The website will remain, there's no news of anything shifting to Disney+, no news of any reduction in what they stream on https://t.co/ZRqThivVMg, and based on "shut down" notice on DisneyNow and NatGeo app, still no transfer of "next day" eps
— Drewly Madly Deeply (@drewlymadlydply) August 24, 2024
“I’m not sure if they’re on the DisneyNOW website, but if so, they’ll still be there otherwise they’ll be lost if not archived.”
I'm not sure if they're on the DisneyNOW website, but if so, they'll still be there otherwise they'll be lost if not archived.
— Disney Schedule Archive (@DisneySchedules) August 24, 2024
“That really sucks. The Disney now app was my go to place to watch episodes of Disney shows for free. But I don’t even have enough money to watch on them on the Disney + streaming service.”
That really sucks. The Disney now app was my go to place to watch episodes of Disney shows for free. But I don't even have enough money to watch on them on the Disney + streaming service.
— sweet lil cupcake (@NicolasGarraud2) August 24, 2024
The Walt Disney Company got deep into the streaming game more out of FOMO than with any kind of sustainable strategy, as Bob Iger has admitted at this point.
Now, the Mouse is looking to leverage parents’ reliance on Bluey and Star Wars to keep their kids entertained to shore up its own losses by persuading people to pay for a Disney+ subscription for streaming content they already pay for on cable. We’ll just have to see how long Disney fans will tolerate this for.
Are you going to pay for Disney+ after using DisneyNOW?