There are high expectations for — and a lot of hoopla surrounding — Disney’s upcoming streaming service Disney+, which is scheduled to launch in November.
The grand reception could be completely warranted, but I’d like to throw in an ounce of healthy skepticism.
Disney has a great library of movies, and owns the extremely successful Marvel franchise. But to successfully go digital and compete in the established streaming video arena will take more than that.
Streaming isn’t about making movies or simply having them on your platform anymore. It’s about the complicated digital delivery of video in HD and ultra HD formats — a challenge masters of video delivery deal with every day.
And infrastructure build-out and signal delivery is no small task when there are tens of millions of users watching different things at the same time — and different binge-watching schedules on different kinds of devices.
Technologically, Disney+ will be competing with Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, the new Apple TV and even Microsoft Xbox to a certain degree.
But Disney+’s biggest hurdle may very well be content. The new format of streaming is different than anything Disney or Hulu has done before. Streaming today is a hit-based business with new and fresh stuff like the series “Stranger Things,” “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” and “Undercover,” and movies like “BirdBox.”
Edgy is not exactly a Disney hallmark. It will need to come up with binge-worthy content because big-budget, box office blockbusters is not what streaming is all about.
Watching Disney’s transition from big motion pictures to cost-effective, quality digital content will be interesting — and hopefully the service will indeed be a plus for consumers.
But expecting an instant success would be a mistake.
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