Disney+

Disney+ homepage on November 12, 2019

**Disney+** (pronounced **Disney Plus**) is an American subscription video-on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned and operated by the Media and Entertainment Distribution division of The Walt Disney Company. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced by The Walt Disney Studios and Walt Disney Television, with the service also advertising content from the company's Disney, Pixar, Marvel, *Star Wars*, National Geographic and Star brands in particular. Disney distributes original films and television series on Disney+. The United States does not include the Star brand and sits alongside Disney's other streaming platforms (the general programming-oriented Hulu and the sports-oriented ESPN+). Disney+ focuses on Disney's core brands, centring around family-friendly entertainment.

Disney+ relies on technology developed by Disney Streaming Services, established initially as BAMTech in 2015 when they spun off from MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM). Disney increased its ownership share of BAMTech to a controlling stake in 2017 and subsequently transferred ownership to DTCI as part of a corporate restructuring in anticipation of Disney's 21st Century Fox acquisition. With BAMTech helping to launch ESPN+ in early 2018, and Disney's streaming distribution deal with Netflix ending in 2019, Disney took the opportunity to use technologies being developed for ESPN+ to establish a Disney-branded streaming service that would feature its content. Production of films and television shows for exclusive release on the platform began in late 2017.

Disney+ debuted on November 12, 2019, in the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands, and expanded to Australia, New Zealand, and Puerto Rico a week later. It became available in select European countries in March 2020 and India in April through Disney's Hotstar streaming service, rebranded as Disney+ Hotstar. Additional European countries received the service in September 2020, with the service expanding to Latin America in November 2020. Upon launch, many met it with a favourable reception of its content library, but many criticize the service for its technical problems. Alterations made to films and television shows also attracted media attention. Ten million users had subscribed to Disney+ by the end of its first day of operation. The service had 86.8 million subscribers as of December 2, 2020.

## History

In late 2015, Disney launched a streaming service in the United Kingdom called DisneyLife to test the streaming market. Disney+ eventually replaced it on March 24, 2020.

In August 2016, Disney acquired a minority stake in BAMTech (a spin-off of MLB Advanced Media's streaming technology business) for $1 billion, with an option to purchase a majority stake in the future. Following the purchase, ESPN announced plans for an "exploratory [over-the-top] project" based on its technology (ESPN+) to supplant its existing linear television services. On August 8, 2017, Disney invoked its option to acquire a controlling stake in BAMTech for $1.58 billion, increasing its stake to 75%. Alongside the acquisition, the company also announced plans for a second, Disney-branded direct-to-consumer service drawing from its entertainment content, which would launch after the company ends its existing distribution agreement with Netflix in 2019. Not long after, Agnes Chu, storey and franchise development executive at Walt Disney Imagineering, was the first executive appointed for the unit, as senior vice president of content. She led two projects to launch the new team. First, Disney needed to verify what content could be physically and legally made available through a streaming service right away, which meant physically reviewing all content in Disney's vaults that had not recently undergone restoration and reviewing "binders of pieces of paper with legal deals" to identify potential obstacles. Second, Chu met with leaders of Disney's various content-producing divisions to start brainstorming which projects would be appropriate for release on a streaming service rather than in movie theatres. She later left in August 2020.

In December 2017, Disney announced its intent to acquire critical entertainment assets from 21st Century Fox. Intended to bolster Disney's content portfolio for its streaming products, they completed the acquisition on March 20, 2019.

In January 2018, former Apple and Samsung executive Kevin Swint became the senior vice president and general manager reporting to BAMTech CEO Michael Paull, who leads development. In March 2018, Disney reorganized its top-level segment division with the formation of Disney Direct-to-Consumer and International, which then included BAMTech, which contains "all consumer-facing tech and products." In June of the same year, longtime Disney studio marketing chief, Ricky Strauss, was named president of content and marketing, reporting to chairman of Disney Direct-to-Consumer and International Kevin Mayer. In January 2019, Fox Television Group COO Joe Earley was named executive vice president of marketing and operations. In June 2019, Matt Brodlie became the senior vice president of international content development. In August 2019, Luke Bradley-Jones became the senior vice president of direct to consumer and general manager of Disney+ for Europe and Africa.

On November 8, 2018, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that the company would name the service Disney+ and target a launch in late 2019. They initially planned a September launch, but on April 11, 2019, Disney announced that Disney+ would launch on November 12, 2019, in the United States. Disney stated that it planned to roll the service worldwide over the next two years, targeting Western Europe and Asia-Pacific countries by late 2019 and early 2020, and Eastern Europe and Latin America during 2020. The timing of international launches is subject to the acquisition or expiration of existing streaming rights deals for Disney content. On August 6, 2019, Iger announced that it would offer a streaming bundle of Disney+, ESPN+, and the ad-supported version of Hulu for $12.99 per month available at launch. At the D23 Expo in August 2019, Disney opened subscriptions to Disney+ at a discounted rate for three years.

On September 12, 2019, a trial version of Disney+ became available in the Netherlands with limited content. This testing phase lasted until the official launch on November 12, when Disney switched trial users to a paid plan. Disney+ became available for pre-order in September in the United States with a 7-day free trial upon launch.

In October 2019, Disney released a three-and-a-half-hour trailer on YouTube to showcase their launch lineup. Disney would ban advertisements for competitor Netflix from most of its TV platforms, except ESPN.

Disney+ launched on November 12, 2019, at Midnight Pacific Time in the announced initial three launch countries. The services had some issues the first day from logging in (about 33% of the problems), accessing specific content (about 66%), setting up profiles and watch lists. Some of the issues were due to third party devices.

On November 18, 2019, an investigation by ZDNet discovered that hackers compromised thousands of users' accounts using keystroke logging or info-stealing malware. These hackers changed Their email addresses and passwords, "effectively taking over the account and locking the previous owner out," and they put up their log in information for sale on the dark web.

On March 12, 2020, Vanessa Morrison, who previously served as President of Fox Family and 20th Century Animation, was appointed President of Streaming for Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production and will oversee the development and production of Disney+ film content from The Walt Disney Studios for both Disney Live-Action and 20th Century Studios. Morrison reports directly to the President of Walt Disney Pictures, Sean Bailey.

In October 2020, Disney announced a reorganization of its media business with a greater focus on streaming. They are planning to add more content for Disney+ and their other streaming platforms (such as Hulu) in the future.

On December 10, 2020, Disney announced that they have 86 million subscribers on Disney+ after a year since its launch. They also announced that they are planning to create even more Star Wars and Marvel content on Disney+.

## Content

Further information: List of Disney+ original programming and List of Disney+ original films
The service has content from Disney's leading entertainment studios and film and television library, including Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Disneynature, Lucasfilm, Marvel Studios, National Geographic, and select films from 20th Century Studios, Hollywood Pictures, Searchlight Pictures, and Touchstone Pictures. The service will operate alongside Hulu, which Disney gained a controlling stake in following the 21st Century Fox purchase. Bob Iger stated that at launch, the company would explicitly focus on Disney+ on family-oriented entertainment (and not carry any R and NC-17 or TV-MA-rated content), and that Hulu would remain oriented towards general entertainment. Hulu will also host Disney+ as an add-on service.

### Content library

Disney+ has approximately 7,000 television episodes and 500 films, including original television series and movies from Disney Channel and Freeform, and select titles from 20th Television and ABC Signature. New releases from 20th Century Studios (including Blue Sky's *Spies in Disguise*) will not immediately be available on either Disney+ or Hulu, as the studio has pre-existing output deals with other premium TV/streaming providers (including HBO in the U.S. until 2022, Crave in Canada and Sky in the UK, Ireland, Italy and Germany). *Captain Marvel*, *Dumbo* (2019), and *Avengers: Endgame* became the first theatrically-released Disney films to stream exclusively on Disney+ within the pay-cable window.

Disney announced that Disney+ would add the first 30 seasons of *The Simpsons* to the service at launch, as the series' new exclusive home, with season 31 being added on October 2, 2020 in the USA.

Iger said that Disney+ would eventually host the entire Disney film library, including films currently in the "Disney Vault." However, the controversial *Song of the South* (1946), which Disney never released on home video in its entirety in the U.S., will not be on the service. For unknown reasons, *Make Mine Music* is not available on the service, making it the only film in the Disney animated canon not to be included yet. Despite being available at launch, at least four films – *Home Alone*, *Home Alone 2: Lost in New York*, *Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides*, and *Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties –* removed from the service in the U.S.

It was initially unclear whether the first six films of the *Star Wars* franchise would be available in the United States at the service's launch, as TBS held streaming rights through 2024 as part of its cable rights to the franchise. In April 2019, Disney announced that the films would be available at launch along with *The Force Awakens* and *Rogue One*, with *The Last Jedi* added on December 26, 2019, *The Rise of Skywalker* on May 4, 2020, and *Solo: A Star Wars Story* on July 10, 2020.

In the United States, most of the films from the Marvel Cinematic Universe were available at launch, except for seven films: *Thor: Ragnarok* (added on December 5, 2019), *Black Panther* (added on March 4, 2020), *Avengers: Infinity War* (added on June 25, 2020), and *Ant-Man and the Wasp* (added on August 14, 2020), due to existing licensing deals with Netflix; and *The Incredible Hulk*, *Spider-Man: Homecoming*, and *Spider-Man: Far From Home*, which is unavailable because Universal Pictures owned *The Incredible Hulk* and Sony Pictures owned the Spider-Man films.

#### Censorship

Disney modified some films for censorship purposes: they edited out a post-credits scene from *Toy Story 2*; nudity was eliminated from *Splash* by adding digital hair, blurring, and cropping certain scenes; films such as *Adventures in Babysitting*, *Free Solo*, and *Hamilton*, were altered to remove profanity; *The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin* (1967) was edited to remove racial slurs, and they edited the short film *Santa's Workshop* (1932) to remove a "stereotypical black doll." Many older movies and animated shorts have a text disclaimer on the platform, noting the possibility of ancient cultural depictions. Starting in October 2020, a 12-second disclaimer informing viewers of racially insensitive scenes plays before some older Disney films – including *Peter Pan*, *Dumbo*, and *The Aristocats*. *X-Men: Days of Future Past*, which contains both nudity and the "F" word, began airing uncensored in mid-2020. Some series are missing episodes, including *Darkwing Duck*, *The Little Mermaid*, *Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends*, and *The Simpsons*, amongst other programs.

### Original scripted content

The service's initial original content goal includes four to five original films and five television shows with budgets from $25–100 million. In January 2019, Disney spent up to $500 million in original content for the service. Original series based on *Star Wars* and Marvel properties have been or are being produced: the former includes *The Mandalorian* (set between *Return of the Jedi* and *The Force Awakens*), a seventh season of the animated *The Clone Wars*, a successor to the Clone Wars, the Bad Batch a spin-off series focused on Cassian Andor from *Rogue One*, as well as one centred on Obi-Wan Kenobi (with Ewan McGregor reprising his role), a series focusing on Ahsoka Tano and a Rangers of the New Republic to intersect with the continuity of *The Mandalorian*; the latter includes *WandaVision*, *The Falcon and the Winter Soldier*, *Loki*, an animated *What If* series, *Ms. Marvel*, *Hawkeye*, *Moon Knight*, and *She-Hulk*.

In January 2019, Disney+ ordered *Diary of a Future President* from CBS Television Studios, its first series from an outside production company.

A television series remake of the film *High Fidelity* was initially for Disney+, but in April 2019, it was moved to Hulu, citing concerns from its staff that the positioning of Disney+ as a family-friendly service was at odds with their creative vision for the series. *Love, Victor*, a spin-off of the film *Love, Simon*, was similarly shifted from Disney+ to Hulu in February 2020.

In August 2019, Iger announced that 20th Century Fox films such as *Home Alone*, *Night at the Museum*, *Diary of a Wimpy Kid*, and *Cheaper by the Dozen* would be "'reimagined' for 'a new generation'" exclusively for Disney+ by Fox Family. Original episodic content released weekly, opposed to all at once, with the release time to be 12:01 a.m. PT on Fridays, starting November 15, 2019.

On December 25, 2020, *Soul* became the first feature-length film from Pixar to be released as a Disney+ Original.

### Original unscripted content

Disney also plans original factual television content for the service, aiming to "find the ethos of Disney in everyday stories, inspiring hope and sparking the curiosity of audiences of all ages." Some of these series will have ties to Disney properties, including behind-the-scenes documentary miniseries focusing on Disney studios (such as one following the production of *Frozen II*), the Disney-themed competition cooking competition *Be Our Chef*, *Cinema Relics* (a documentary series showcasing iconic costume and props from Disney films), *Marvel's Hero Project* (a series that will showcase "inspiring kids [that] have dedicated their lives to selfless acts of bravery and kindness"), and *The Imagineering Story* (a Leslie Iwerks-directed documentary series chronicling the history and work of Walt Disney Imagineering). National Geographic is also producing *Magic of the Animal Kingdom* (a docuseries following the animal caretakers of Disney's Animal Kingdom and Epcot's aquarium) and *The World According to Jeff Goldblum*.

Disney reached a two-year pact with the documentary studio Supper Club (Brian McGinn, David Gelb and Jason Sterman, producers of Netflix's *Chef's Table*) to produce content for the service, including the conservation-themed nature documentary series *Earthkeepers*, and a documentary series chronicling the cultural and societal impact of Marvel's characters. Other factual series include *Encore!* (a Kristen Bell-produced series that reunites casts from high school musical productions to reprise their roles), *(Re)Connect* (a reality series produced by Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos' Milojo Productions), *Rogue Trip* (a travel series featuring Bob Woodruff and his son Mack), and the reality competition *Shop Class*. On December 3, 2019, Disney+ announced the new *Star Wars*-based children's game show *Jedi Temple Challenge* to be hosted by Ahmed Best, who voiced Jar Jar Binks in the prequel trilogy.

## Device support and service features

Disney+ is available for streaming via web browsers on PC and Mac, as well as apps on Apple iOS devices and Apple TV, Android mobile devices and Android TV, Amazon devices such as Fire TV and Fire HD, Chromecast, Chromebook, Samsung smart TVs, LG smart TVs, Vizio SmartCast TVs, Roku devices, Sky Q, Now TV devices, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows 10. Content available on Disney+ is also on the Apple TV app.

Accessibility features include closed captioning, Descriptive Video Service, audio description, and audio navigation assistance.

Disney+ allows seven user profiles per account, with the ability to stream on four devices concurrently and unlimited downloads for offline viewing. Content can be viewed in resolutions up to 4K Ultra HD in Dolby Vision and HDR10, with Dolby Atmos sound on supported devices. Legacy content is available in English, Spanish, French, and Dutch, while Disney+ originals feature additional language options. Subtitles and dubbing are available in up to 16 languages. A substantial amount of content is available in Hindi, Indonesian, Tamil and Telugu languages on the Indian and Indonesian counterpart, Disney+Hotstar.

In late May 2020, the service added the switch between 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios for early *Simpsons* episodes after the service received backlash for stretching those episodes to 16:9 by default at launch. Disney had done this "in order to guarantee visual quality and consistency across all 30 seasons." To accommodate the feature, Disney Streaming Services "had to reconfigure its content-delivery engine" while ensuring the new feature would not break any existing features such as continue watching, watchlists, and auto-playing, as they did not want to treat the 4:3 versions as bonus content. The resulting changes allowed Disney to apply the existing audio, subtitle information, episode artwork, and other metadata from the episodes to both aspect ratios regardless of which is chosen by the user. Joe Rice, vice president of media product at Disney Streaming Services, added that these adjustments "opens up a number of exciting opportunities for novel ways of presenting content in the future."

In September 2020, the service added the GroupWatch feature, which allows up to seven different Disney+ accounts to link up and co-view programming with one another. Viewers can react to content with six different emojis and control playback for the entire group. It is available on the web browser, mobile app, smart TVs, and connected TV devices in the United States, and will expand to Europe later in 2020. Disney previously tested the feature in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

## Launch

Disney+ was launched early in the Netherlands on September 12, 2019, as a free trial. It officially launched in the Netherlands, the United States and Canada on November 12, 2019, just before 3:00 a.m. EST (UTC–5). Disney+ launched in Australia, New Zealand, and Puerto Rico on November 19, 2019, and in Austria, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Germany, Ireland, and Switzerland on March 24, 2020. In the UK and Ireland, Disney+ replaced DisneyLife. A linear Disney+ TV channel launched alongside the streaming service, which broadcasts programming from Disney+ in Spain. It's available exclusively on Movistar+, their release partner in the region.

In December 2019, Canal+ became the exclusive distributor of Disney+ in France. France's launch was delayed from March 24 to April 7, under the French government's request to conserve network capacity due to the COVID-19 pandemic placing additional strain on communications networks.

In February 2020, Iger announced that it planned to launch Disney+ in India on March 29, 2020, using its existing service Hotstar, rebranding its paid tiers as a co-branded service. Hotstar was acquired by Disney during the Fox purchase and has been the dominant streaming service in the country. However, Disney postponed it due to the Indian Premier League being rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Disney then launched it on April 3, 2020.

In April 2020, Disney announced that Disney+ original content would be licensed to pay-TV and streaming operator OSN, starting on April 9, in 17 countries in the Middle East and North Africa region with Disney noting that they had no current "plan to launch Disney+ as a standalone service in the region in the near future."

The service launched in Japan on June 11, 2020, as part of Disney's existing partnership with NTT Docomo, succeeded the existing Disney Deluxe service in the region. Disney+ launched in Indonesia through Hotstar on September 5, 2020; Portugal, Belgium, Finland, Iceland, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Greenland on September 15, 2020; and Latin America and the Caribbean on November 17, 2020.

On December 10, 2020, Disney announced that the service would expand to Singapore on February 23, 2021, and Eastern Europe, South Korea, and Hong Kong sometime in 2021. Disney also announced that the same day, Disney+ would begin offering general entertainment content in Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore via the branded portal Star in select international markets (taking its branding from Disney's pay television businesses in Asia). Like Hulu, Star will include films and series from the Walt Disney Television and 20th Century Studios libraries that fall outside Disney's core franchises (including ABC, FX, and Freeform programs).

## Reception

On November 13, 2019, a day after its launch, Disney announced that the streaming service had already signed up more than 10 million subscribers. Disney+ has been well-received, thanks to its affordable price and for the extensive Disney library. Frank Pallotta of CNN stated that "the company [Disney] has repackaged its trove of beloved content for the service makes it a worthy companion to the other services in the marketplace. Nick Pino of *TechRadar* stated, "If Disney keeps it updated with new content, Disney+ could rival Netflix sooner rather than later."

Upon launch, Disney+ experienced significant technical difficulties. Users complained about receiving error messages that the service was down and that they were "unable to connect," which was irritating because many had paid for the service months in advance. In some instances, many need to reset passwords to enable access.

One other negative aspect of the service's launch was the presentation of the non-HD episodes of *The Simpsons*. Namely, instead of presenting them in their original aspect ratio, they were either cropped to fit 16:9 widescreen televisions or awkwardly stretched out to that aspect ratio. Many similarly criticize FXX's now-defunct "Simpsons World" streaming service when it launched. In response, Disney stated they would make the ability to watch the episodes of the first 19 seasons and some from season 20 in either the 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio in early 2020. The feature was made available on May 28, 2020.

Some have noted that episodes of *The Simpsons*, *X-Men*, *DuckTales*, *Phineas and Ferb*, *Kim Possible*, and *The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes* are presented almost entirely out of order, while some series are missing episodes. Others have questioned why an extensive catalogue of Disney-owned material is missing from the platform, including Marvel content, Disney Junior titles, various Muppets media, and *Star Wars* spin-offs. On June 26, 2020, the 2017 *DuckTales* series had its episodes arranged in the proper order, while co-creator of *Phineas and Ferb*, Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, has stated that they are working on correcting the order of his series.

Disney+ was the top trending Google search term in 2019 in the US. In February 2020, Disney reported that Disney+ had 26.5 million subscribers by the end of 2019 and 28.6 million by February 3, 2020. By April, Disney+ had 50 million paid subscribers, with approximately 8 million of those from India. The service had 54.5 million subscribers by May 4, 57.5 million subscribers by the end of June, 60.5 million subscribers by August 4, 73.7 million subscribers by September 30, and 86.8 million subscribers as of December 2.

In 2020, Apple Inc. named Disney+ the Apple TV App of the Year. It was the second and third most-downloaded free app of the year globally on the iPad and iPhone, respectively. It was also voted the best app of 2020 by Google Play users.

## Notes

1. ↑ This figure may include discounted pre-orders which were offered in August and September 2019.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Stark Raving Dad" (1991) is the only *Simpsons* episode unavailable on Disney+; the episode was pulled from general circulation in March 2019 following renewed sexual abuse allegations against guest star Michael Jackson.
3. ↑ The *Home Alone* films were restored in November 2020, after fulfilling a contract with HBO.
4. ↑ The rights to *The Force Awakens* (among various other Disney films) are owned by the premium television network Starz (as they have previously been the first-run pay-TV provider for Walt Disney Studios' releases between 1994 and 2015). In order to sub-license the streaming rights, it was reported that Disney had agreed to provide an advertising placement for Starz at the conclusion of the registration process for Disney+ and ESPN+ on PC and Android platforms, although no further promotions from Starz are seen once sign-up is completed.
5. ↑ Similarly, minor cleavage was blurred in *Wizards of Waverly Place*.
6. ↑ Words like "fuck", "goddamn", and "homo" were censored from *Adventures in Babysitting* and *Free Solo*; however, *Hamilton* retained one instance of "fuck" as that is allowed in a PG-13 film.
7. ↑ An additional notice is displayed for titles containing depictions of tobacco.
8. ↑ One episode featuring Nazi imagery and (Nazi agent Red Skull) was omitted. Additionally, the series' third episode features a warning about racially insensitive content regarding stereotypes of Asians.
9. ↑ Additionally, the first few episodes of *Gravity Falls* had the symbol on Grunkle Stan's fez removed.
10. ↑ *The Mandalorian* alone was expected to cost about $10 million an episode.
11. ↑ The service received a soft launch on September 12, 2019 in the Netherlands.
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Preceded by DisneyLife
13. ↑ The service was originally to be launched on March 29, but was delayed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
14. ↑ Preceded by Disney Deluxe
15. ↑ Excluding Cuba and the United States Virgin Islands.