Streaming bundle here?
"The Walt Disney Studios Entertainment and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) have announced a new streaming bundle that includes Disney+, Hulu and Max. Beginning this summer in the US the streaming services will be offered together, featuring content from ABC, CNN, DC, Discovery, Disney, Food Network, FX, HBO, HGTV, Hulu, Marvel, Pixar, Searchlight, Warner Bros, and more. The new bundle will be available for purchase on any of the three streaming platform’s websites and offered as both an ad-supported and ad-free plan."
This is only in the US to begin with, but this is providing a model of how the #streamingmedia industry could change, and consolidate in some way to bring about a less fractuous market.
"Additional details regarding the bundle, including pricing, offer will be unveiled in the coming months."
It will be intriguing to see what the price will be. My guess would be there will be a modest increase in price, but I think the main aim of this strategy would be to curb the #churnrate as subscribers would no longer need to drop Disney to subscribe to Max and vis-versa. It would make sense to me to be less about offense and increasing pricing and more about defence to keep the subscribers who join their platform.
If it does turn out to be a ploy to be able to increase pricing, I think it will fail badly, people will go to other platforms, the market is fragmented enough that no one platform is indispensable, and if there was one, it would be Netflix anyway. If it's a defensive move, it will stand more chance of success.
It goes to show the new era of co-operation, and this will be watched closely by other #streamingplatform rivals. If this move leads to less churn and more stability in subscription, then will we see other alliances amongst streamers? We've seen now alliances between pay-tv and streaming across the board, but as of yet, no streaming alliances.
And yet, it remains to be seen how this will work. It's a great idea in principle, but how exactly will it function? What's the split of revenue? Is there a benefit for Disney if the package is subscribed via their platform, or vis-versa? What if Max accounts for more viewing than Disney on the JV or vis-versa? Will this affect the terms of business between the two? It seems hazardous to have two big separate companies, with their own interests trying to co-operate on this.
It's not like paytv, where the operators acted as middle man and aggregator of channels, this is D2C, and with two rivals trying to co-operate, it could either be a big success or end in acrimony.
It's a big move in the industry, aggregation is the direction that the industry needs to go without a doubt. However, its laden with risk and challenges.
#streaming #tvindustry #mediaindustry #television #streamingservices #svod #vod #wbd #disneyplus