With streaming competitors still wondering how they’re going to compete with a robust Disney+ platform debuting with a low, low $6.99 price, The Walt Disney Company has announced a pricing strategy sure to spur even more antacid use in executives suites spanning from Los Gatos to Cupertino and Burbank.
Disney has announced that it will bundle Disney+, ESPN+ and the base, ad-supported tier of Hulu for $12.99, starting November 12 with the launch of Disney+.
Netflix’s most popular tier, which allows HD streaming and two simultaneous streams, retails at $12.99 a month. AT&T’s upcoming HBO Max, meanwhile, will be priced at around $17 a month.
At $12.99 a month, the Disney bundle offering represents a 27% discount over the $17.97 users would pay if they ordered each of the services individually. Disney+ is priced at $6.99 a month, with ESPN+ going for $5.99 and base-tier Hulu priced at $4.99.
Never mind that ESPN+ will, over time, as major league sports broadcast licensing deals get renegotiated, will have an incumbents inside track to such huge live franchises as the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball and NCAA Football, just to name a few of ESPN’s current rights deals that will eventually transition to retail.
And never mind that Hulu represents a fairly significant SVOD smorgasbord.
Just listen to Disney CEO Bob Iger’s description of the Disney+ offering during Tuesday’s second-quarter earnings call:
“Disney+ will offer more than 600 hours of premium content from National Geographic at launch, along with almost 300 hours of family entertainment from the Fox Studios library,” Iger told investors. “Disney+ will ultimately become the exclusive streaming service for our vast library of movies and series, National Geographic content, all upcoming Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars movies and a robust slate of high-quality original programming from the creative engines that drive our entire company.”
