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Disney says it has more streaming customers than Netflix

88 points| lxm | 3 years ago |cbsnews.com

149 comments

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legitster|3 years ago

Disney has so much less content, and I really don't mind it.

There's nothing I hate more than logging into Netflix after a month and everything I was vaguely interested in has now completely disappeared and been replaced by even more half-assed looking projects.

Also, shout out to Disney for actually making it easy to restart a show from the beginning. I don't understand how Netflix has dropped so much money into children's programming without doing any sort of user testing to find out that kids generally like watching the same shows again.

rabuse|3 years ago

They have less content, but Netflix is seriously full of so much trash content. I've rarely enjoyed a Netflix original movie.

gnufied|3 years ago

This is disney+hulu+espn combined!

When hotstar was bundled with Hulu - hulu suddenly got huge infusion of Indian movies and shows. Nothing Netflix has even comes close.

I wonder also, if they are counting hotstar, which is pretty big in India.

Having said that - I personally find content on disney+ boring and stale. Some Marvel and Star War spin offs are okay, but most are meh. I don't know how to put it, but disney+ is trying too hard to en-cash popularity of existing franchise and I believe lacks depth.

Netflix while has uneven programming has/had shows which are pretty good and break new ground(IMO). Queen's Gambit, Dragon Prince, Arcana etc are pretty good. They have also wasted money on the whole witcher show and their "original" movies are by and large meh.

Scaevolus|3 years ago

Disney even lets you pin shows so you don't have to keep searching for them!

duxup|3 years ago

I kinda hate how the lack of content is filled in by a lot of National Geographic Channel low quality infotainment.

It is a very strange contrast to have such high quality and garbage next to each other.

Also the restart show works, but not a whole series… it will still sometimes get confused and jump ahead because you watched future shows.

Barrin92|3 years ago

>and been replaced by even more half-assed looking projects

the "half-assed" projects are the only thing that has me coming back. Netflix in contrast to a lot of the other services still has a decent amount in particular foreign and original IP. Most recent example, Cyberpunk Edgerunners, that would not be on Disney+. I just don't care about the 50th take on Star Wars. Given the numbers apparently I'm the only one on the planet but I just don't understand it.

Silhouette|3 years ago

Disney has so much less content

Does it really? (Serious question.) We got Disney because of the Disney part but I was pleasantly surprised by how much other big name content is on there.

I'm hardly highbrow in my viewing habits and enjoy a good blockbuster movie or popular show as much as anyone. I do like to spend my limited viewing time on stuff that isn't complete junk though.

I've all but stopped even checking Netflix now because the odds of anything on there being Netflix-made junk that I won't even finish watching are so high. Meanwhile I'm probably working through a couple of different shows and have several movies waiting at any given time on Disney. I suspect our Netflix subscription will be ending soon as I don't think anyone else in the house is watching anything on there either right now.

paul7986|3 years ago

Disney also owns awesome legacy IP; superheros, star wars, pixar and disney movies. It's also a lot cheaper and indeed less bloated. Netflix has zero such legacy content and it's more expensive; soon even harder to use with them locking down sharing!

arwineap|3 years ago

> Also, shout out to Disney for actually making it easy to restart a show from the beginning. I don't understand how Netflix has dropped so much money into children's programming without doing any sort of user testing to find out that kids generally like watching the same shows again.

I'm baffled at how much of a pain this is. Don't show him more stuff, he very clearly wants to watch what he's chosen; yes again, what do you want from me?

LarsDu88|3 years ago

Disney has decades of experience with content that the whole family can enjoy. Netflix has a decade of experience with...AWS

With Netflix you get a mixed bag of Stranger Things + stuff that most folks expect to be dropped after 2 seasons.

When Netflix pivoted into content, they needed to get creatives and passionate people in charge rather than the tech-world PMs they ended up putting in charge.

Disney might not be perfect, but for the MCU and Jon Favreau-adjacent Star Wars stuff, theres a distinct respect for story telling and characters that just totally missing from some of the high budget Netflix stuff.

Properties like MillarWorld just have the soul sucked straight out of them in Netflix's hands

brookst|3 years ago

> When Netflix pivoted into content, they needed to get creatives and passionate people in charge rather than the tech-world PMs they ended up putting in charge.

Very, very true. Disney's magic is their strength as a content brand. Not just their core products; with ESPN you know exactly what it's going to be, from live sports to documentaries.

Netflix made an amazing pivot from physical to digital distribution, and that will be studied in business schools forever.

But they failed to pivot from digital distribution to content. They knew they needed to, they spent billions of dollars trying to, but they didn't understand that content has to be the primary brand identity. Distribution is an implementation detail.

systemicdanna|3 years ago

The problem with Disney is that if you are not into… well Disney stuff then there is nothing to watch. On HBO you just get quality, in many different genres and formats.

laptop-man|3 years ago

idk about you but I know of atleast 15 gems made by Netflix. but majority are cartoons.

15 is nothing tho compared to all of their flops.

if anyone likes cartoons checkout: centaurworld - awesome wrap up on the last episode dogs in space Maya and the three dead end Cuphead over the moon Klaus

alistairSH|3 years ago

Not surprising, Disney (plus ESPN and HULU) is bundled with several cell phone plans in the US. I subscribe because it’s “free”.

And Netflix continues its long slide into irrelevance. I’ve was a subscriber for many years, but cut it last month. Too much low-quality programming and it continually recommends shows I’ve watched previously and refuses to allow Apple to index it’s catalog so it appears in alongside other providers inside Apple TV.

MBCook|3 years ago

> and refuses to allow Apple to index it’s catalog so it appears in alongside other providers inside Apple TV.

I hate this so much.

I understand the idea. “We want you to come to Netflix for all your needs”. Makes sense from their perspective.

But I’M the user. My Apple TV helps me keep track of everything I’m watching right now. New seasons of shows I watch pop-up so I know they are out. I don’t have to check 7 apps every few days to stay on top.

But Netflix won’t participate. You know what happened to me? I forgot about it! Instead of constantly reminding me it exists by seeing it in my Up Next section (like Hulu, HBO, Disney+, etc) it’s buried under a pile of other content I’m constantly reminded about.

Terrible user-hostile decisions. Just like hiding your queue of what you were watching last to promote The Floor Is Lava: Season 7: Back to School Adventures or whatever I wasn’t going to watch anyways.

thebigspacefuck|3 years ago

Netflix is bundled with T-Mobile

hemloc_io|3 years ago

Here's a question I've had and maybe someone from HN can answer it.

The (movie) streaming wars have content as a differentiator in the market, but it doesn't seem like Spotify/Apple music is effected.

Assuming both the RIAA and MPAA members both don't care about consumer complaints that much, why do record companies not start their own streaming services?

I assume it's easier than making a movie streaming service, and it's basically the same business model right?

Why aren't we reading these headlines about Top Dawg vs Spotify instead of Disney vs Netflix.

version_five|3 years ago

The streaming services only work if they are "better" than just downloading the content for free. My guess is that music has a much lower barrier, both in terms of availability and in people's tolerance to listen only to parts of a catalogue divided along record company lines, so if only 25% your top 40 (or 90s or whatever) was available on SONY Streaming, you'd just say fuck it and download it.

Somehow, the video landscape has shaken out to have generalist (Netflix,maybe Amazon) and specialty content, not all that different from cable. So people are used to it that way. And come to think of it, radio generally plays music from all record companies, so there is a precedent there too.

With more fragmentation, particularly with Netflix losing it's generalist position and having more self-produced crap, I suspect that downloading movies is going to become viable for more people

kmeisthax|3 years ago

They tried. They failed so horribly that the RIAA basically granted Apple a monopoly on digital music for the next half a decade. Steve Jobs had to basically slap the labels around a lot just so that they wouldn't limit how many iPods you could sync your music to or make you buy a subscription. Music streaming was tried by basically every other player in the business and failed until Spotify pushed for ad-supported free streams.

Interestingly enough, the record labels - or at least Sony and Universal - actually do have minority ownership in Spotify. I would not be surprised if that was specifically pushed to get those labels on-board with Spotify's really low royalty rates.

As for why they don't do it today... my guess is that the exclusive content model just isn't as much of a draw for music as it is for movies and TV shows. Or, more specifically, we don't listen to music like we watch TV shows. Imagine if someone just made a list of episodes of Netflix shows they liked and watched them in a random order - that'd be insane. But that's how we handle music all the time. Pulling your music off Spotify means you lose out on radio and playlist royalties, because nobody can make playlists across streaming apps. You'd have to switch into the one streaming service that has the latest Taylor Swift album, then switch back to the one that has the Sony BMG catalog, and so on. Nobody would do this.

remir|3 years ago

Music is consumed differently than TV/movies.

People these days usually don't listen to entire albums, but to individual songs as part of playlists. If all record labels created their own streaming services, it would break this experience and people would go back to piracy again to get it back.

Further, music is something that usually exist in the background while people do other things, whereas movies/shows requires attention to benefit from the content.

Service like Netflix or Disney+ can manage to create exclusivities because people watch episodes of a show in sequence due to the nature of the medium and are emotionaly engaged/invested in the story/characters, so they are essentially "captive" of that serialized content for its duration.

ThatPlayer|3 years ago

I think the difference is how music is consumed. When was the last time you just sat down and listened to music? The same way you would with a book or a stream? For me, music is just something I put on in the background rather than something I'm devoting my full attention to. This makes one song very interchangeable with another song

And that makes it harder to get convince someone to subscribe to your service because quality is not important for background noise. Even a unique song gets old after listening to it more than a few times on loop. That leaves quantity as your sole selling point, which if it is only your catalog is not much.

Maybe they could make an organized effort with other record companies to pull out of Spotify/Apple Music/YouTube Music all at the same time. But any of the smaller companies wouldn't be interested in that because it would make it harder for them to compete because they have a smaller catalog and less money to spend on the tech.

johannes1234321|3 years ago

It is an interesting topic why those markets are separate. My assumption is that music is way more casual and affiliation to labels and distributors is a lot smaller than with video. Some big stars aside there is lots of interchangeability ... that song not available, well then I listen to something else, but if a Star Trek movie isn't there I won't watch Star Wars. But that's speculation.

As a consumer I very much prefer the Spotify/Apple Music model. I don't want to have 20 subscriptions. I want to go into Blockbuster or some other video retailer and get any movie and pick what I want. I don't want to think about studios and distributors and rely on external services to even figure out what to use (in Germany: https://werstreamt.es which tells me where I can watch/download)

colinmhayes|3 years ago

I don't think people would use a music streaming service that doesn't have all the content they want. I think the record companies agreed to the streaming deal because they saw that piracy was a legitimate issue, and the business strategy probably just worked better than for film. $5 or $10 a month per user adds up to an acceptable amount of revenue for music labels + streaming services to split, but there's just more money in film so the price for a universal streamer would be bonkers and no one would pay.

The content probably works better for film streamers too. If you have to change apps every time you finish a 3 minute song to listen to the next one you probably would look for a different solution, but film is a much longer commitment so switching services after watching is less of a hassle.

lmm|3 years ago

People mostly aren't willing to pay for music exclusives. (Tidal tried to make a go of it, but that hasn't really gone well for them). People are willing to sign up for Amazon just to watch The Grand Tour or whatever, but there's no real analogue to that in the music world. Maybe because a single album or even a single artist is too "small" to make an impact?

Compare the fact that people used to pay for (individual!) cable TV channels, but there was no equivalent for radio - a few people did pay for satellite radio, but I don't think you ever got people signing up for the premium package in the same way they did on TV.

MBCook|3 years ago

History?

So this is a total guess but as far as I know radio stations have always played all music. As far as I know there’s never been Sony stations and EMI stations and such. Maybe with original programming like soaps and game shows long ago or talk shows more recently but never music.

On the other hand TV sort of started siloed. Maybe because of radio consolidation? But CBS had CBS stuff, NBC had NBC, etc. Cable kind of continued that (outside of syndication and reruns).

I just can’t imagine listening to a BMG station. I don’t have any clue what label(s) my favorite artists are on.

systemicdanna|3 years ago

Most people can’t name a single label/recording company. Or if they can they don’t care about its music catalog enough to pay a monthly fee.

ketzo|3 years ago

You can't launch a new service without exclusives. Exclusives are much less effective in music than they are in TV/movies.

1) There's so much more producer variety in music than in video, even at the top of the charts.

2) Music listening habits are very conducive to variety. In the time I watch a single Marvel movie, I could have listened to songs from 10+ different record labels.

xmprt|3 years ago

The music industry was losing out on tons of money until Spotify and music streaming services came up. Unlike movies, I think people like to have all their music in one place so if they cut Spotify out of the middle then instead of people moving over to subscribe to them, people would just stop listening to their music or go back to piracy.

ErikVandeWater|3 years ago

Best guess is that the business model in music has moved to live performance. It's important for stars to get their music heard by the most people so that they can have the greatest demand for concert tickets.

There's no parallel in movies. But it would be interesting to see the actors of star wars in a play that tries to recreate the movie.

habibur|3 years ago

News says all three Disney owned streaming services : Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu, when counted together, have about 1% more subscribers than Netflix.

I thought Disney streaming service now has more paying customers than Netflix. Still not the case.

muglug|3 years ago

Content is king. Once the big studios started pulling their stuff from Netflix in favour of their own streaming platforms, the writing was on the wall.

Netflix doesn’t have the breadth of monetisable IP that the mouse has. The latest season of The Crown is basically scraping the barrel of royal family drama. Stranger Things has a season or two left. If I had Netflix stock I’d sell.

marricks|3 years ago

> the writing was on the wall

I really hope not. It’s possible the 2010s will be seen as a golden of the TV shows where there was so much competition for eyeballs that many shows were made which otherwise might not have been. Niche demographics seemed catered to which otherwise might not have.

Moving back to Disney owning everything and other channels not being able to compete… that’d be sad. Some people aren’t really excited about super hero shows or Star Wars anymore.

PuppyTailWags|3 years ago

I'm surprised by this because Netflix has Heartstopper & Neil Gaiman's Sandman. They've also canceled a bunch of stuff that could come back really strong, Sense8 comes to mind.

XorNot|3 years ago

I get the distinct impression that Netflix leadership vastly over-estimated the value of their in-house technical IP to delivering streaming content.

ShockedUnicorn|3 years ago

To be clear. Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu when _combined_ have more customers.

It's important to note that Disney pushes hard for buying these 3 together as a package for a reduced price, therefore basically tripling some customer numbers.

walterclifford|3 years ago

> therefore basically tripling some customer numbers

Since the bundle includes ESPN+ we have an upper bound on how big that "some" can possibly be: 24.3 million according to https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/disney-plus-subscribers-164...

The actual bundle numbers will be less than that of course, but without knowing how many people subscribe exclusively to ESPN+ (i.e. not as part of the bundle) we don't know by how much.

encryptluks2|3 years ago

It is like $20/mo for all three vs $16/mo for just Netflix. It is a good deal that is hard to beat although I think they are going to start running ads on the $20/mo plan so who knows it it will be a good deal for much longer.

jurassic|3 years ago

I saw somebody describe Netflix as a library of unfinished books. That sums up my feelings about the platform well. I don't bother, because I don't like to get invested in things that are very likely to be cancelled.

kypro|3 years ago

I know it's not Disney / Netflix, but am I the only one surprised by how good and unappreciated Prime Video is? I find there's some good stuff on there and it's all bundled in with my Prime subscription so as a long-term Prime subscriber I feel like I basically get it for free. The Boys is amazing for example, probably the best superhero show I've ever watched. Amazon Music got a nice upgrade recently as well with more albums included with the standard Prime subscription.

Terretta|3 years ago

> am I the only one surprised by how good Prime Video is?

It's usually an expression, but you may, in fact, be the only one.

Prime is the UHF of streaming platforms carrying the WTBS catalog of content.

It's free, towards the end of the dial, and almost all re-runs with the occasional trophy showpiece.

tedunangst|3 years ago

Not alone, but I'm kinda amazed how many people discount all the good prime originals that are available.

systemicdanna|3 years ago

I can’t name a single other great show from Prime. It’s just the Boys.

TheBrokenRail|3 years ago

Given just how important content is to streaming services and Netflix's reputation for canceling good shows, this doesn't seem that surprising to me. Especially since rather than focusing on content, Netflix is instead focusing on limiting password sharing, which was never going to give them good PR.

dumpsterdiver|3 years ago

While I'm still a big fan of Disney+, lately I feel like they're watering down some of their brands (such as Star Wars) by pushing out low-effort storylines coupled with rehashed digital assets. For instance, the animation in the new "Tales of the Jedi" show that was released recently looks very similar to the animated Star Wars shows released 15 years ago. On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed the animation and storylines in "Star Wars: Visions", so it's not exactly like they're sinking the ship or anything.

bluefirebrand|3 years ago

I strongly recommend going back and watching some of the 15 years ago Clone Wars to re-asses that observation. I'm rewatching it now and the difference is stark.

Yes, the art style is similar. The animation quality isn't remotely close. The environments aren't remotely close. Clone Wars environments, especially the outdoor ones, are extremely bland and repetitive.

kmeisthax|3 years ago

Caveat: Disney has three streaming services that they usually sell as a bundle, so if you buy the bundle they count you as three customers.

stormbrew|3 years ago

In Canada Disney+ is where most of the stuff on Hulu or FX eventually ends up, among some other things, and at this point I think it's actually probably the streaming service with the deepest library because of that, which is kind of funny. It's probably the one I'd be least likely to drop, while Netflix has been on the verge a few times now.

jahewson|3 years ago

Note that Netflix has more paying customers.

marwatk|3 years ago

I don't think they were able to "become HBO faster than HBO can become us"[1] and now they're paying the price. They have effectively zero moat with their own IP and now they're competing with everyone else for the same creative talent without an ability to separate the wheat from the chaff resulting in quality all over the map.

1: https://www.gq.com/story/netflix-founder-reed-hastings-house...

k__|3 years ago

I have the impression, Netflix lived past its prime some years ago.

Back in 2010 it tried new things and was quite affordable.

But it became a run of the mill cabel network, and not even a good one, many shows simply dissapear all the time.

Watchwatcher|3 years ago

Disney has recently blocked Linux users so they are currently dead to me.

brnt|3 years ago

Thanks for letting me know. It's hard to figure out which services support Linux; usually they don't mention it, despite the browser being a so-called OS indepedent platform.

dools|3 years ago

Maybe Disney needs to do an original series called “Netflix” about the last Netflix subscriber on earth

kajaktum|3 years ago

I've not watched a single Netflix show the past half year and possibly more. I've only glanced over them as I walk by the living room when my family members are watching them.

There's really nothing that interesting in these streaming platforms anymore.

nightski|3 years ago

Is there any concrete evidence they are in a battle? How many households have both? I know Verizon includes the Disney bundle for free. Netflix just launched it's ad supported plan as well. Lots of things are in flux right now.

systemicdanna|3 years ago

Anecdotally: not in a battle. I have unsubscribed from Netflix last year and got Disney+/Hulu for free. So these services are not fighting for my money!

Mikeb85|3 years ago

Honestly Disney has it's own classics, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, National Geographic... That alone means I can't unsubscribe, even if I generally like Netflix better. And I'm sure lots of people feel the same way.

keewee7|3 years ago

Why haven't any of the big streaming services tried bundling sports streaming?

izacus|3 years ago

Because they're not allowed to due to exclusivity deals.

Disney can just buy out content from competing services and HN will cheer them on with how amazing they are when they prevented other services from streaming the same content.

systemicdanna|3 years ago

Not sure if sarcasm… Disney bundles Disney+/Hulu/ESPN.

billfruit|3 years ago

Disney numbers may be larger due to budling with mobile subscription plans in several large countries, including India(where numbers are likely very large).

Also Disney bundles in live sports coverage in some countries.

Victerius|3 years ago

I'm one of them. I unsubscribed to Netflix and subscribed to Disney+. I don't watch a lot of shows, but I'm a huge fan of Star Wars, which Disney owns.

wnoise|3 years ago

Counting the three services its content is distributed over, which almost certainly counts people subscribing to multiple services as multiple people.

therobot24|3 years ago

kids man

it's the point of your life where disposable income is easily spent to make them happy and you look at products not with respect to shelf life, but with respect to how much the kid will _actually_ enjoy them even if for only a brief time

subscriptions to disney+ are a 'no brainer', the content is there, _something_ will fit the bill without you even having to do the mental analysis

mensetmanusman|3 years ago

Netflix should pivot back to physical distribution so that they can list absolutely everything on their catalogue again.

Two hour drone shipping! :)

jimmydddd|3 years ago

I've never had any desire to sign up for Disney or Netflix. After reading the comments I feel like an extreme outlier? :-)

maverickmax90|3 years ago

Disney.. Terrible ux though ....can't match Netflix slick interactions

duxup|3 years ago

How many of these viewers are free with some bundle, cell service or etc?

Ptchd|3 years ago

Because people want to keep their kids glued to the "TV"

longcommonname|3 years ago

Disney is primarily an entertainment company and focuses on users enjoyment.

Netflix is now an ad/ tech company.

kcb|3 years ago

I would be pretty confident Disney makes far more money from advertising even as a percent of revenue than Netflix.

22c|3 years ago

longcommon's law? Any sufficiently advanced digital media outlet is indistinguishable from an AdTech company.