Disney Headlines for September 17th, 2024

Happy Agatha All Along Week! Disney’s got a plan for this program, and it’ll turn you Inside Out 2.

Okay, that’s lame, but the Disney Headline this week is that Disney has a streaming plan for the next three months.

We’ll talk about what’s happening and also close the book on the DirecTV nonsense.

Disney’s Big Week

On September 18^th, Agatha All Along, the long-awaited sequel to WandaVision, will debut on Disney+.

Actually, Agatha All Along is more of a side quest featuring the villain from WandaVision. So, it’s more akin to Loki.

Make no mistake on the point, though. WandaVision remains the gold standard in Marvel content on Disney+.

So, the two sequels to WandaVision, Agatha All Along and Vision Quest, will prove instantly popular.

Therefore, you’d expect Disney+ to increase its prices. After all, that’s what Peacock did right before The Olympics.

But Disney will take a different approach. Rather than squeeze customers for a short-term gain, Disney wants to build loyalty.

Next month, on October 17^th, the price of Disney’s streaming services will increase. Even the basic ad tier plan will cost $9.99.

However, Disney is offering a deal right now that you should purchase by September 27^th. I cannot stress that enough.

Right now, you may subscribe to Disney+ for $1.99 a month for three months.

Yes, for the price of coffee and a bagel, you can get three months of Disney+ programming.

Now, you may want to cancel at the end of that third month by setting a reminder on your phone.

Otherwise, you’ll be charged at least $9.99 for month four, more than doubling your financial outlay.

Why You Want Disney+ Right Now

Take advantage of the deal for a quarter and then get out. Disney will inevitably offer a similar discount, probably around Black Friday.

But the current timing incentivizes you to sign up right now.

That’s because Agatha All Along will air every episode during these three months.

The Marvel series begins with a double episode on September 18^th and then concludes with another on October 30^th.

This is a Halloween series, and Disney is presenting it as such.

For $3.98, you can watch the entire thing and then cancel before the third month begins if that’s your desire.

However, you may not want to do that. I say this because Disney is setting the deck for a spectacular fall on Disney+.

On September 25^th, a week from tomorrow, Inside Out 2 will debut on Disney+.

How big a deal is that? Well, it’s the eighth-biggest blockbuster of all time, with a global box office of $1.677 billion.

Inside Out 2 recently surpassed 2019’s live-action remake of The Lion King to become Disney’s biggest non-Marvel/Star Wars/Avatar film ever.

Speaking of Marvel, during these three months, Deadpool & Wolverine is likely to debut on Disney+.

I say this because the Marvel movie entered theaters six weeks after Inside Out 2. It stands to reason that a similar pattern will hold on digital.

So, that’s the top two blockbusters of 2024 that you can purchase for $1.99 a month for three months.

Therein lies Disney’s streaming strategy. The company hopes to get you hooked on its content via this low introductory rate.

Later, the hope is that you’ll stay for just $9.99 a month.

Disney’s Hot Streak

If you try to cancel then, there’s a chance you’ll be offered another discounted rate, too.

That’s the standard operating procedure in streaming right now to limit churn.

As a reminder, churn is an industry term indicating how many customers a streaming service loses.

These consumers presumably churn through various streaming services based on which one has the best content.

Generally speaking, that’s typically Netflix, but Disney will stake a claim from now through the end of 2024.

So, the company’s goal is to persuade you that Disney+ is always worth your money.

In a perfect world, Disney would convince you to subscribe to its bundled service instead.

The Disney Bundle includes Hulu, and there’s a good reason why you might want that right now.

In fact, there are 50 reasons why the service is more appealing at the moment, and they all spell Emmy.

Hulu is riding a historically unprecedented wave of awards season dominance.

Programs like Shogun (18 Emmys), The Bear (11 Emmys), and Only Murders in the Building (21 Emmy nominations and 3 wins) anchor Hulu.

So, if you haven’t subscribed to the service since the start of March, you’ve got new seasons of each to discover.

Shogun’s success is particularly noteworthy because it had already broken the record for Emmy wins before the main presentation even began!

This conversation explains why Dana Walden has become the odds-on favorite to succeed Bob Iger as Disney CEO.

Walden has taken charge of the television and streaming sides of Disney Entertainment, and it’s excelling beyond Iger’s wildest dreams.

So, you can expect more of these $1.99 discounts (or maybe $2.99 next time) as a teaser.

Disney believes its content is good enough to get you hooked now, starting with Agatha All Along on September 18th.

PS: I recap all Marvel episodes on MarvelBlog if you didn’t know.

DirecTV Bends the Knee

A little over 12 months ago, Charter Communications picked a fight with Disney over carriage fees, which led to this.

Iger got everything he wanted from that deal while making only one primary concession.

Disney didn’t force Charter to extend its contracts for less popular cable channels like Freeform.

A few weeks ago, the signs appeared in the sky. They showed that one of the last remnants of the satellite era wanted a fight.

Sure enough, DirecTV and ATT, its corporate owner, refused to settle with Disney on carriage fees…at first.

Disney channels went dark on DirecTV at the worst possible time, just before the start of the college and pro football seasons.

ATT is a well-diversified company that never should have bought DirecTV. In fact, it’s thinking of selling/spinning off the business.

With its own corporate overlord apathetic to its very existence, DirecTV lacked any negotiating power here…but it tried anyway.

The exercise played out as expected, with customers quitting DirecTV, a service that can ill-afford to lose anyone.

On Saturday, before the start of another weekend of college football, the two parties settled.

Fait Accompli

DirecTV did the math and decided it would lose too many customers on Saturday and Sunday without ESPN and ABC.

That statement alone reinforces why the company has no choice with its sports licensing negotiations.

Football rights are power, and any major service that lacks football content is doomed to fail.

So, DirecTV did what it should have done the previous week or even before the season began.

Fittingly, DirecTV got even less than Charter. DirecTV must keep all of Disney’s channels, including Freeform and the like.

For its part, all that DirecTV got that Charter didn’t is an agreement to get ESPN Flagship when it debuts next year.

Disney loves that deal since it guarantees several million subscribers for the service.

The gist of this whole nonsense is that DirecTV felt it had nothing to lose, tried to get Disney back down, and then faced an open revolt from subscribers.

This was another self-inflicted wound that will likely end the same way Charter’s did last year: with a mea culpa hidden on a balance sheet in a quarterly earnings report.

Some companies are learning, though. Warner Bros. Discovery reached out to Comcast and renegotiated renewal terms a year early.

Smart businesses should do the same with Disney right now. The Mouse holds all the power here.

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