Up until the premiere of Marvel Studios “Loki”, Disney would release all of its new releases on Fridays and shifted its focus onto Wednesday’s.

This resulted in “Loki” becoming the most-watched show on Disney+ and recently, during an interview with Variety, Gabe Lewis, senior VP, programming and content curation for Disney Plus, confirmed that since the shift to Wednesday premiere’s

“so far have been very pleased with the results,”

And also confirmed that Disney+ moved most of its episodic unscripted programming to an all-at-once (binge) release strategy, based on viewing data.

As traditional television channel viewing declines, the Fall season has become less important, as Disney, along with other studios, release more content throughout the year.  Jane Gould, exec VP of content research, insights and scheduling at Disney General Entertainment, explained why it’s still important.

“The fall season remains the clear kickoff of the TV calendar year, with all of the power and excitement that accompanies it. But just like everything else in the media landscape, it is evolving.”

Gabe Lewis also explained how Disney+ does benefit from the traditional television schedule, which sees lots of new shows arrive in the Fall.  As Disney+ gets past shows that are returning to linear and that one of the benefits of streaming is that

“we can program year-round without some of the considerations that dictate how linear programming operates”

Internationally, Disney+ is mixing up its release schedule much more, because of the addition of the general entertainment brand, Star, the release schedule is a little more packed, so are releasing new episodes of shows like “The Walking Dead” and “Only Murders In The Building” on other days to spread out the content.  And the majority of the new series heading to TV channels like ABC and FX in the US, will also be released on Disney+.

“This includes markets with our Star general entertainment brand, which directly benefit from the great content our linear teams are creating and programming that eventually comes to those services.”

With so many series and films to be released each year, scheduling can have a huge impact on the success of these projects.  Release a show at the wrong time. It can be buried.   However, streaming platforms like Disney+ make it much less important about getting an exact timeslot that will work, because people are used to watching content on their own schedule.

What do you think of Disney+ shifting its releases to Wednesdays?

Roger Palmer

Roger has been a Disney fan since he was a kid and this interest has grown over the years. He has visited Disney Parks around the globe and has a vast collection of Disney movies and collectibles. He is the owner of What's On Disney Plus & DisKingdom. Email: Roger@WhatsOnDisneyPlus.com Twitter: Twitter.com/RogPalmerUK Facebook: Facebook.com/rogpalmeruk

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