Disney+ Launches 4 New “Streams”
Last month, Disney launched the first of its new curated “continuous playlists” on Disney+ in the United States. These “channels” included ABC News Live and Disney+ Playtime, which features popular shows from Disney Junior.
Today, Disney has officially launched four more “playlists”, which it is now referring to as “Streams”, which offer a lean-back viewing experience by showing continuous programming Streams based on seasonality or interest that subscribers can enjoy without having to select title by title.
A collection of seasonally-themed content from across the Disney+ catalog begins with Hallowstream for Halloween. Hits & Heroes, delivers a compilation of action-packed stories from marquee brands and franchises, including Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars. Throwbacks, is a destination for always-on nostalgic pop culture content. Real Life, offers a lineup of traditional documentaries, biopics, and true stories.
While the ABC News Live and Playtime streams are available to all subscribers, these four new Streams will initially only roll out to Premium subscribers in the United States at launch.
Disney has also confirmed that ABC News Live is not rated, so will require a profile to be set to TV-MA to be able to watch it and that Disney+ Playtime will only feature shows rated TV-G and also won’t be available in Junior Mode. However, for the other curated Streams, content ratings are based on each individual program, not the overall Stream. If a profile’s content rating setting is below that in playback, it will cause playback to stop and inform the user that the program is unavailable.
It’s also been revealed that the launch of the Disney+ Playtime and ABC News streams have been a success, pulling in over 10 million hours streamed from subscribers in the U.S., and we’re seeing early signs of overall engagement lift amongst subscribers who watch them.
Disney has stated that Streams is another way Disney+ is providing subscribers with more choice, new options for endless entertainment and an opportunity for subscribers to discover something new, or relive old favorites, based on seasonality and interest. It’s just one of many ways Disney+ is looking to better serve consumers with the content they want most.
Roger’s Take: The launch of Streams is a great idea to offer a selection of content in a more traditional format, especially for those who can’t decide what to watch. It’s also interesting how Disney is actively trying to avoid calling them channels.
No doubt, should this feature become more successful, we will see more Streams added to the service, hopefully to all subscribers, both on ad and ad-free tiers, plus internationally! Plus, it could be a way of expanding to a larger audience should Disney decide to make this feature “FAST” for everyone to enjoy (with the benefits of ads!)
Have you used the “Disney+ Streams” feature yet? What do you think of it? Let me know on social media!
Roger Palmer
Related Article
