Disney CEO Confirms A Free Tier Of Disney+ Is Being Considered
Recently, it was reported that Disney was looking to boost engagement of its streaming service, Disney+, by offering a free tier.
Many other streaming services offer a free tier, but the explosion of the popularity of free platforms like Roku, Tubi and Pluto have seen massive growth, as users are attracted to these FAST (Free Ad Supported) platforms.
During a recent investors call to talk about the latest quarterly financial results, Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro was asked about the recent reports that the company was looking to launch a free tier of Disney+, to which Josh replied:
We’re exploring a free product for consumers, one that will allow us to accomplish several goals and hopefully do that efficiently. First, we see it as a way to expand our reach to a customer segment that’s more price sensitive and expanding our reach is, as we’ve talked about before, one of our strategic priorities. Second, unlike a lot of our AVOD competitors, we’re fairly well sold, meaning more inventory would actually help us accelerate our ad revenue growth. And then finally, as you mentioned in your question, a free offering could help us drive top-of-funnel Disney+ subscriber growth. So nothing specific to announce today, but definitely something that we’re considering.
Roger’s Take: With Disney looking a many different alternatives to boost engagement and subscriptions, adding a free ad-supported tier could likely help get more people watching their films and shows, though I would expect the free tier to only offer a very limited selection of titles, possibly some FAST channels, similar to what’s already available on other platforms like ABC News.
Disney+ is gearing up to offer much more content, not just its top class films and shows, as its also recently made a deal to bring popular TikTok content onto the platform, live sports from ESPN, vertical videos, plus more integration of content from Hulu including Live TV and add-ons.
While Disney+ does already offer a cheaper alternative plan with ads, the addition of a free tier would allow them to reach a bigger audience, who are more likely to upgrade once they use the app and see all of the content available. However, Disney’s CEO didn’t seem to want to get to too many details, since it might not necessarily happen.
Would you like to see a free tier of Disney+ available? Let me know on social media!
