Today saw a huge amount of new content added onto Disney+, including movies like Cool Runnings and TV shows like Austin & Ally, however, the first of the month also looks to be a day when Disney remove content from its streaming service.

It’s common for streaming services such as Hulu and Netflix to remove content at the end of the month, however Disney has said on many occasions that titles won’t be rotating on and off. But this doesn’t look to be the case.

As in December, a number of titles were removed in the United States including:

  • Garfield: Tale of Two Kitties
  • Never Been Kissed
  • Disney’s Avalon High

And today, in the United States, the following titles were removed:

  • Home Alone
  • Home Alone 2
  • The Sandlot
  • Flicka
  • Doctor Dolittle
  • The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
  • Strange Magic
  • The Wonderful World of Disney: Magical Holiday Celebration.

These titles weren’t removed in other countries, except for the Magical Holiday Celebration special.  However, both Never Been Kissed and Avalon High were put back onto Disney+ last month, so those were just temporary removals .  And it looks like the majority of the titles removed, are 20th Century Fox titles.

There are a number of reasons why these titles have been removed, an existing contract which means they will be available on another platform or there is an problem with the title and it has been removed to fix it.  Though a error message would be more useful, similar to how if you click on a title that isn’t available yet, such as Mary Poppins Returns, it will say when it will be available.  And while not ideal, also add a future release date note on titles that have been removed so users know when they will be returning.

If titles have been removed for technical issues, I consider that to be acceptable, but just removing titles without notice isn’t good for subscribers.   Disney must communicate this better,  in a similar way to other streaming companies. like Netflix.  Ideally titles expiring soon should have a date listed within the app. In Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass, it has a section telling users what’s going to be leaving in a months time.

Eventually existing streaming deals will expire and Disney+ won’t have this problem, but right now, Disney need to be much more transparent with what is planned to be removed and when.

I’ve contacted the Disney+ team for a comment on this situation.

 

What do you think of titles leaving Disney+ ?

 

 

 

For the latest Disney+ news, follow us on TwitterFacebook, and Instagram.



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

Related Article

7 Comments

  1. Scoops January 2, 2020

    Your response is very gracious and altruistic, but the fact is that Disney explicitly and repeatedly stated they would NOT be rotating content, as recent as December. They are complete hypocritical assholes for reversing course now and doing so without warning.

  2. Travis January 2, 2020

    Roger, please keep us posted on whether you hear back from the Disney Plus team. I agree that this will shake the faith of some people, and seems to negate some of the trust in Disney's word that content would not disappear on a regular basis. Some reasons, progress reports, etc, just some transparency in general, would be nice. Even a statement from them saying I'm sorry, we were wrong, and this is why content in some regions has to come and go. Thank you for all you do.

  3. Jamie January 2, 2020

    This is blatant dishonesty. I’m sure there are subscribers who got rid of their physical copies because Disney+ has stated that the movies would have a permanent home there.

  4. fuzzyfoot88 January 2, 2020

    I think they are removing things due to issues they can't solve in the immediate present. If it was something simple, they'd probably roll back the title page to 'available on this date' but instead they are removed completely. So that tells me its an issue they don't have a set date it'll be fixed with. It might be better for them to put 'due to a technical issue' or something on the page so people know it'll return.

  5. Rob Gallegly January 2, 2020

    Pulling Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides makes no sense to me. They still have the first three and the fifth one out there. I was in the middle of watching Stranger Tides.

  6. DonDonP1 January 2, 2020

    Man, oh, man. I wish those titles would have remained on Disney Plus after Christmas.

  7. Graham January 3, 2020

    What's Off Disney Plus