Hinting at the sea change that will come to the television and movie industries after the launch of the fourth-generation Apple TV, Disney today announced DisneyLife, a £9.99 ($15.43) per month subscription video, music, and book service that will include Pixar’s entire catalog and classic films such as Snow White and The Jungle Book, report The Financial Times (sub. req.) and Variety. Beyond films, DisneyLife will feature thousands of Disney TV episodes, plus hundreds of books and albums, with new content being added as it’s released. The multilingual service will launch November in the United Kingdom, and is planned for a 2016 rollout across France, Spain, Italy and Germany.
While a U.S. launch has not been ruled out by the company, it’s not imminent, as existing contracts limit what can be offered in Disney’s largest market. As one example, Disney’s upcoming theatrical releases will hit Netflix under previously announced deals for the United States and Canada. According to the report, Marvel movies and Star Wars movies will not be a part of DisneyLife, but could be launched as separate subscription services…
“There’s a general sense that the world is going in this direction,” Disney CEO Bob Iger told The Financial Times. “There will be multichannel TV and we will be part of it, but the app experience offers many more layers (and) much more richness in content than a channel, where one program follows another program.”
Iger was famously a close friend and confidant of late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, working closely together during and after Disney’s acquisition of Pixar. Disney and its properties, including the ABC broadcast network and ESPN, have enjoyed fairly early and prominent involvement in Apple’s video initiatives, including the iTunes Store and Apple TV.
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Interesting. But, I have, I believe, all of the pixar movies and most of the Disney movies. So, I guess there would really be no need for this. Also, the thing that will stop this from getting to a large amount of people, is the price. I pay $7.99 a month for net flix. Look at everything I get with that.
I fear that we a looking at the future here.
More and more streaming services, all around $9.99 with smaller and smaller sets of content. Eventually as their numbers will grow we will see more and more companies refusing to sell to Netflix, Amazon and others. In the end content selection will be so narrow that few services will be worthwhile, and we will see Netflix and others perish unless they can rely on original programming.
I dreamt of a future with 1-3 streaming services (for some competition), with a total monthly price up to $50 or so, where we could watch everything. Of course the shortsightedness of Hollywood, and their greed will ruin this good thing as well.
I’m not against Disney and others making their content available, and if Netflix or Amazon Prime wouldn’t pay a fair price (doubtful), good for Disney. But in the long run, this is just the beginning of companies making their content exclusive to their own overpriced services.
Yes, that makes sense. If you think about it though, how many “stations” on our cable are owned, either fully or partly, by the same companies? So, say ABC were to make a plan. How many things would you get from just that? Then, if you REALLY, think about it, that would only hurt networks. Say ABC has 10 different things under it’s control. Ok, now say they let you get streaming on those networks, individually for, say $8.99 a month. Well, I like ABC family and there may be a show or two I watch on the actual ABC channel, but, I would only pay for family. If it were to come down to those rules, I think a lot of people would weed out what they did not really care about.
We have FIOS with 2, I think 2tb DVRs. So, I’m fine with that now. I canceled Hulu Plus. Never used it. I really do not use Netflix either. I may cancel that and use something like Apple or Mgo. I much more like owning or renting my movies when I want to watch them. I own hundreds and hundreds of movies, anime, seasons and series sets. I have the steaming things a chance. I just never really use them. At least netflix does not have adds every 10 minutes. I am aware you can pay to take those away in Hulu. But, it just didn’t seem worth it to me.
So, what would people pick if they could? The thing is, unless every network were to do the streaming thing all at once, you would be forced to stay with cable. My step dad watches stuff on, I think Velocity. Would that ever go streaming? That is bad for both parties. Those who watch and the network. If people could pay a lot less, how many could care about a network or two? So, back to the question at the beginning of this thing, what to pick? Cartoon Network, Disney, Food Network, Fox, TBS, TNT, History channel, HGTV and that may be it. But remember, you can get stuff like ABC free. You just need an antenna. So, that makes things much more interesting.
I would almost be fine just buying seasons of shows that I like.
I forgot Comedy Central. Though, South Park is the only thing I watch on that network.
Disney has one of the richest, most diverse and deepest back catalogues of any player in the media world. If anyone can pull this off, it’s Disney. I’m in the UK, and I will be subscribing to this Day 1. I hope they have a really great Apple TV App for the service, and I suspect they will considering the closeness of the relationship between Apple and Disney.