The Walt Disney Company’s faltering and divisive streaming service Disney+ lost a huge 1.3 million subscribers after a price hike back in October of 2023.
HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 27: (L-R) The Walt Disney Company Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger and Chris Pratt attend the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 World Premiere at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California on April 27, 2023. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Disney)
There have been a lot of contributing factors to these losses, one of which being that this is the company’s second price hike in less than a year. In a struggling economy, families and fans alike need to watch the costs of living and it seems Disney is seeing the results of that.
Alongside the struggling economy, with the millions lost at the box office from their 2023 film slate, it seems there is very little buzz about wanting to see these “box office blunders” again on the small screen.
Further harm to their subscription numbers comes from a span of original programming that has failed to land with viewers such as Ahsoka, Secret Invasion, and Echo.
Disney also lost the rights to the Indian Premier League and is the “icing” on a cake of the many streaming failures from 2023 alone.
Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) with purrgil in a scene from Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
What could bring in new subscribers soon, is the announcement by Bob Iger that Taylor’s Swift’s film, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) will be coming exclusively to Disney+ with five new songs.
This however, is not the first time her $261.7 million concert film will hit streaming. Universal Pictures released their own version of the film back in December with three exclusive songs on various non-Disney platforms.
The Disney+ variant will release on March 15, 2024 and it is not currently known if it will get the same buzz as the film is technically already out on digital, but Swifties have proven that they will come for almost anything with Taylor’s name attached!
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) poster
Outside of Taylor Swift, Iger cites streaming hour successes from 2016’s Moana and 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water on streaming and wants to go in the direction of more sequels. Iger shocked the press with the announcement of a Moana sequel in 2024, despite a live-action movie being announced as recently as April 3rd of 2023.
The sequel is heading to theaters, meaning that it may not come to Disney+ till 2025. If Moana 2 can land with audiences like its first iteration did, perhaps this can help bring a bump on Disney+ numbers again.
A scene from Moana 2 (2024), Walt Disney Animation Studios
It seems that Disney is hoping to use Taylor Swift, the Moana sequel and their, newly announced, $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games to hide the fact that they have lost so many subscribers consistently in recent years after an impressive start during the pandemic.
However, viewers and investors tend to lean towards the appeal of recent successes when it comes to whether or not they should commit to a Disney+ subscription and it seems the one who is leaning most towards past blockbusters and a long term process is Bob Iger.
Disney Entertainment Universe
In addition, when asked about the plan for Hulu to grow compared to competition with YouTube during the investor meeting, CEO Bob Iger seems to believe that the growth will come through bundling Disney, Hulu, and ESPN, despite them losing almost a million internationally.
This viewpoint in addition to their original programming ranking low on the Nielsen Numbers consistently throughout 2023, makes viewers and investors have to wonder, where the revenue is gonna come from?
