Disney Jumping into the Global OTT War
Disney will be ending its distribution deal with Netflix and starting a brand new OTT service of its own. With the release of this major news, Disney has just become the biggest cord-cutter Hollywood has ever seen.
Being the biggest entertainment company for years, Disney undoubtedly has a huge library of valuable content in forms of movies, tv shows and more. In this sense, launching an OTT service of its own is nothing to be surprised about, rather, cord-cutters can expect to see less Disney content (if at all) on any other OTT platforms.
In addition to the original film and tv show streaming platform, Disney is also launching a sports streaming service called ESPN Plus. The sports service will exist as an add-on within the ESPN app. This move will drastically differentiate Disney’s streaming service from other OTT platforms, as sports content is usually non existent in OTT.
“This acquisition and the launch of our direct-to-consumer services mark an entirely new growth strategy for the company, one that takes advantage of the incredible opportunity that changing technology provides us to leverage the strength of our great brands,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a statement accompanying the announcements.
Although the loss of Disney content will be a major disappointment for Netflix subscribers, Netflix continues to spend more money making its own shows, and noteworthily good shows. In preparation to the potential loss of Marvel’s shows, Netflix also acquired Millarworld, which published critically acclaimed comics like Wanted, Kick-Ass, and Kingsman. That being said, it is obvious that Netflix is not giving up the title of OTT king anytime soon.
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