Today marks a major change for Disney’s streaming services in Latin America as Disney+ goes through a major upgrade with the merger with Star+, bringing live sports from ESPN and general entertainment from Disney’s studios like FX, Searchlight, ABC and 20th Century Studios into a new Star hub within Disney+. 

Disney+, across Latin America and now the Caribbean, offers subscribers a wide selection of films and shows, including “The Acolyte,” “The Bear,” “The Simpsons,” and much more.

As part of the new relaunch of Disney+ across the Latin American region, there are now three different tiers available to subscribers:

• Disney+ Premium: Star’s general family and entertainment content and ESPN’s sports, with the best audio (Dolby Atmos) and video (UHD/HDR) quality, on up to 4 devices simultaneously, including live streaming of all ESPN’s linear channels and all exclusive sports events for streaming. This option will allow downloads of up to 25 titles on up to 10 devices.
• Disney+ Standard: Includes all of the catalogue of family and general entertainment content of Star and ESPN sports, with 1080 px video quality and Stereo 5.1*** audio, including live broadcasts from the ESPN and ESPN 3 linear channels. This plan will give the possibility to enjoy the contents on up to two devices simultaneously and download up to 25 contents on ten devices.
• Disney+ Standard with Ads: Star’s catalogue of family and general entertainment content with advertisements, and ESPN sports with 1080 px video quality and Stereo 5.1 audio, including live broadcasts of the ESPN and ESPN 3 linear channels. It will initially be available only in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Colombia. It will be integrated into packages of business partners such as Mercado Libre, which will provide this plan through its Meli+ benefits program in those five countries.

The Star+ app will continue to operate for another month, before completely closing down.  Existing subscribers to Disney+, Star+ or Combo+ will be moved to the Premium plan from today.  So if you do want to lower your price, you’ll need to go into your account settings to do so, which will apply from the next month.

With the new tiers, there is a general price increase, which varies from country to country.    The launch of the new look Disney+ in Latin America has also introduced some other small changes to the app globally, as the app needed to be updated earlier today.

The introduction of the Star hub, will bring Disney+ across Latin America and the Caribbean in line with how the streaming service operates internationally. 

However, the launch of the ESPN hub is a major breakthrough for the streaming service globally and is the first region to offer it.  Later this year, in the US, a new ESPN hub will launch within Disney+, with select sporting content available, but it will require an ESPN+ subscription to access all of the content, similar to the recent launch of the Hulu hub.

Roger’s Take:  The launch of Star+ has always been a head-scratcher for me, as it felt like a cross between Hulu and ESPN+, but an unnecessary product.  I often thought it was a test platform to see if this would work, and as predicted, Disney has finally decided a single platform is a better offering for not just the consumer, but for them too.  And now I no longer need to type or say the word, Star+!   More importantly, I think this is a glimpse of how Disney+ will operate globally in the future.

Are you looking forward to using a newly merged Disney+ in Latin America?  Let me know on social media!

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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