What Should Disney Plus Do?

Disney Plus an eProduct?

Yep, an electronic product (viewable movies and TV shows through an online portal).

So is Disney failing? It seems like it is undergoing more of a reorganization with some shows being cancelled and people unfortunately getting laid off.

You hear a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon of failing, destruction etc and all those lovely/ hyped words. Most point to the idea that politics are involved or some shows are too poor.

But these are not really the reasons for Disney to falter.

Disney is a huge powerhouse that has a lot of content and a lot of cash in the bank (remember EndGame made $2billion alone). It has tons of divisions (which might be a good and bad thing) and tons of original Brands.

The restructuring is mainly Disneys attempt to stay afloat in the future, it is more long term manoeuvring. For them to fail quickly would mean other things involved.

I don't really see that in Disney.

People state that Disney is beating up Lucasfilm- the movies so far have been odd and maybe a lost opporunity. However, people also forget about Lucasfilm. If you remember, before Disney bought Lucasfilm, Lucasfilm was getting beat up because of the Star Wars prequels and the various editing/ versions that George was working on. Even if George was working on new movies, people were annoyed with what was going on. Now that blame seems to have shifted to Disney.

What I do see are a few issues that are incorporated with the business model that they have chosen. Unfortunately every single company that has gone down this route seem to end up in the same position.

Disney Plus business model

Disney Plus is a subscription service that sky rocketed with COVID and being released in Winter allowed people to stay at home more.

Initially everything was just right. It just made common sense that Disney would go down this route.

However, the subscription model has fundamental flaws.

Subscription is awesome for businesses-

they have a guaranteed income.
they can add product or take it away and generally the subscribers stay the same.
marketing can also be done through that portal. What are people clicking on, how long do they stay on a topic, what topics do they look at. It is a million people focus group

Other companies have had a subscription business model and seem to have done well- check out Netflix and HBO- but why them and not Disney?

But...subscription can have its issues and this is the main problem for Disney Plus.

Subscription issue #1

If you release all of your product onto a platform, it is highly likely that people will see what they want to see as soon as they subscribe.

For Disney people probably saw:

the heavily promoted launch shows that came with the package
nostalgia programs and movies
The company movies- Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm

When you have see all of these movies what happens then? Likely that you will watch a couple of the same ones again because, they were cool. But after a while you start to look for others in those categories. Failing to figure out what is similar (which Amazon and Youtube have done a great job at) you start to reduce the use.

When price of the service increases then you start to think of why you watched it in the first place.

Maybe you have kids and the shows that they watch are still on there...but the use declines.

Subscription issues #2

In your zeal to create more content of similar type you then rush out product. It goes well, the first batches of product are cool, but then you realise that you need more. The quality reduces. You start to pick random topics of questionable reasons and the audience reacts by being wary. More product gets churned out because you believe the audience demands it. You start to throw in the tent pole actors and names to bring people back to view your offering. But things are being rushed. Hang on, people liked XY and Z character so lets do spin offs on those...but things go odd.

Nostalgia is one thing but making sense is another. If you are used to a certain thing and then it flips for a random reason then you may just get random results.

Jasonera is a huge Marvel fan. Watched everything. But the degradation of Marvel didnt start with SheHulk, it started with IronMan 2...and then Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Both very different movies from the originals which made little sense. For us that is when the course started to change. But...it got steered back and gave us the wonderful Infinity War. Those movies were technically throw away movies- they weren't referenced too much in the future. Marvel didnt double down on them.

Unfortunately to this day we havent seen SheHulk. It was a cool idea to start with but again, had an odd direction:

Wong was made out to be silly
Fourth wall breaking is OK as long as it is in context. Are they talking to themselves or us? If it is us then that is odd. I dont like that within Deadpool either- it just takes you out of that movie viewing.
A superpowered villain wreaks a courthouse and everything is fine?
Asgardian weapons are easy to find and use?
If Bruce can be cut so easily and his blood used to create a Hulk, how come no-one has just mined his blood?
It took away Blonskys anger

We watched SheHulk upto the wedding reception and then we stopped watching. It was just so odd. The problem? Would I watch a seaon 2? Probably not. I would need to wait for reviews to come in. And this is the problem with Disney Plus. People are waiting to watch the programs and not watching them from the outset. Orrr...they are watching the first show in anticipation for something big and then maybe, just maybe there is hope- which happened with Book Of Boba Fett.

This is a very common issue. If your first product is cool then your second product will have the blanket of fans who liked the first. If however your initial product is bad then your subsequent products will not get the initial love as they should- regardless if they are good or bad.

Subscription issues #3

HBO and Netflix are subscription based and seemingly are doing well?

Netflix had a rough time though recently, they are raising up their prices and stopping people from sharing their content through password sharing.

Netflix is also creating original titles that some people enjoy. They were also the main original company that people tried to copy.

HBO? Seems to be untouchable. Original programming aimed for late teens and adults generally. They throw out good content generally. Again HBO has been around for ages.

However we unsubscribed from Netflix.

Even with all their titles, once you have seen some titles you are wary to start others for the fear of spending a long time to watch something that isn't good.
Some of the original programming is not that targeted to our needs.
Whats the difference between new titles and new releases?
Trawling through content is a bore/ chore

HBO? We havent subscribed to them directly. We have gone through a third party. It also gives us up-to-date movies and TV shows and basically takes the job of Netflix.

As more and more aggregate companies are coming out, what is the point of Netflix? They have to create more content, or they need to latch onto titles that people can only watch on their platform. This was done to great effect with The Irishman. But one movie a subscription service does not make. My view. They should:

partner with a studio/ take over a studio with a large back catalogue (why didn't they buy MGM?) and place their new movies on the platform- reduce the competition
fund movies (which seems to be what they are doing)
talk around Disney
have more "about" content. I would love behind the scenes, after talks, making of- of those various different Netflix properties

What is Disney Plus to do?

They obviously know more about their own platform than us- they have those lovely data points which we don't have access to. But there are a few options, which I think Disney are thinking of:

Scrap Disney Plus. Sound harsh but you have to ask if something is costing you too much that is the benefit that you are going to get. Disney still advertises offline and online regardless of D+ being there. With all that content you can point people to a Disney store and people can rent the shows/ buy the content online to stream. With D+ (and all the other streaming services) there is no way to buy what I have just seen.
Rent out your content. Let an aggregator have all the headaches of streaming, but they pay you when someone watches your content. Have exclusives
Fan Movies. Why not promote or house fan movies on your Disney+ if you are keeping it. I like the idea of the artful stylisation of StarWars. But there are tons of people out there producing cool content that are getting decent views online. Ramp up the production quality- leave them alone artistically and house 1 of their movies. It promotes them and it creates great goodwill. You will also find grassroots creators to funnel into Disney projects
Trim down content. There doesnt need to be that many shows that are so unrelated and cost a huge amount. Check out Secret Wars- a reported $200 million cost to make. When you look at it...ermmm...that money went on what? Again, is it going to make back that money in subscriptions. Are people buying the boxsets? Remember that just because a character seems cool doesn't mean they deserve their own show. Book of Boba Fett fell into this trap. Awesome appearance on Mandalorian but then the TV show? People jumped into viewing the first episode because of Mandalorian. And again, as the show progressed they brought in tent pole characters to prop up the series (a couple of episodes didnt even include Boba Fett).
Spin off some of the companies that you have bought. Selling them would be a mistake as you have now created 3 competitors Marvel, Pixar and LucasFilm are the main ones. Still be under the Disney flag for distribution but let them be their own companies, with their own vision. If things go bad then it is the company and not Disney at fault- the Disney brand comes away less beat up. It is reported that some episodes of some shows had Disney interference. This allowed the show to lose sight and story resulting in poor shows and poor reviews.

As per always. We wish Disney all the best.

Check out the Jasonera blog for updates.