Disney Agrees to License Ten Television Series to Channel 4 in the UK
In perhaps a sign of things to come, Disney has agreed to license ten television series to Channel 4’s streaming service in the UK.
Nine of the ten programs are currently available on Disney+ in the UK, which requires a monthly subscription. The Channel 4 streaming service, on the other hand, is free.
What Shows Will Be Available?
The shows licensed to Channel 4 will add 1,000 hours of American drama to their platform. The shows included in the deal are:
- Alias Seasons 1-5
- The Americans Seasons 1-6
- Empire Seasons 1-6
- Scandal Seasons 1-7
- The X Files Seasons 1-11
- Bones Seasons 1-12
- The Killing Seasons 1-4
- Star Seasons 1-3
- Grown-ish Seasons 1-6
- Abbott Elementary Seasons 1-2
A Change In Streaming Strategy?
For Disney, the move may be a harbinger of a larger shift in the company’s streaming strategy. Disney CEO Bob Iger has previously stated that the company wanted to shy away from licensing its content. Instead, Disney tried to accumulate as much content as possible in order to foster subscriber growth.
With both Disney and Wall Street turning away from subscriber count as the gold standard metric and instead looking at profitability, licensing out more properties to third parties may be in Disney’s future.
There has been widespread speculation that Disney could eventually license out the Disney+ content that was recently removed from the platform to third-party apps such as Tubi or Roku.
Channel 4 Responds
As for Channel 4, the network is thrilled to add the new content to their streaming service.
Nick Lee, head of acquisitions at Channel 4, stated: “We’re so pleased to have agreed to such an extensive content deal with Disney, ranging from their most iconic series like ‘The X-Files’ to fresh hits such as ‘Abbott Elementary’ and ‘Star.’ We look forward to our viewers being able to binge series after series on Channel 4.”
The ten new Disney series will be available to stream on Channel 4 later this month.
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