The Walt Disney Co., which reported that it has more than 100 million paying Disney Plus subscribers, has been boosting its advertising spending to attract and retain customers.
According to MediaRadar, ad spending for Disney Plus was up 158% in January and February compared to a year ago.
The vast majority of the money--96%--is going to national television. Disney has shifted 13% of its digital spending supporting Disney Plus to national TV since last year.
Disney owns ABC and a bunch of cable networks including ESPN.
From December 2019 to February of 2020, Disney Plus spent an average of $6.2 million per month on national television and digital ads, MediaRadar said.
The increase comes as Disney lapped its original deal offering Disney Plus free to Verizon customers.
“There was some concern that the original Verizon subscribers who received Disney+ as a free sign-on would have low renewal rates. That may yet come to pass for some minority of subscribers, but the big picture is that Disney Plus is performing much stronger than the company, or analysts, had ever predicted.”
Disney Plus has also been helped by interest in some of its original programming, including The Mandalorian and WandaVision.
