Disney may be well-positioned to knock Netflix off of its streaming pedestal— at least if their gains with their streaming bundles continue through the year. With immense customer traction, they’ve made significant gains in closing the gap with Netflix, as well as a substantial reduction in customer churn. To tell us more, we have entertainment attorney from Blake & Wang P.A., Brandon Blake.
Was Bundling the Secret All Along?
Of course, we’ve seen some steep subscription price increases from Disney throughout the 2024 and 2024 periods, so a rise in revenue alone was almost guaranteed. More importantly, however, their most recent findings suggest that their focus on bundling their various entertainment services with competitor streamers has made great strides in reducing customer churn. It’s suggested that 80%, or four-fifths, of their 1.6M subscriber gains in the July-December period are still with the Disney-Max bundle 3 months later. Additionally, their main bundle saw 10% more customer acquisitions than the Disney+/Hulu offering, and 20% more than Max alone, which also has bundles on offer.
Subscriber churn has been a growing problem for streaming services across the board, as subscribers dip in and out according to their viewing preferences. As a comparison, Netflix’s figures lie in the 55% range, despite offering more programming, as does the premium Disney+/Hulu/ESPN bundle.
A Change Ahead for the Streaming Industry?
Naturally, it would be foolish to make sweeping pronouncements on a single quarter, no matter how successful. However, it does show that cross-company bundling has (or, at least, is perceived to have) more value for customers than within-service bundles like Max or Disney’s flagship offerings. Especially when it comes to addressing that thorny issue of churn.
In a landscape that has also seen the average price of streaming offerings rise sharply, there’s obvious customer appeal in offering avenues into two different services through the same subscription cost. Will we see other services jump on this cross-platform model? Can Disney and Max sustain these gains? And will we finally see serious competition for Netflix’s premiere streaming position? It will be interesting to see how the rest of the year unfolds.
Film and Television 