It seems like the Disney Plus price might go up again. Disney CEO Bob Chapek has spoken about how, as the streaming service’s library grows, cost of access might also rise in kind – though he didn’t put too fine a point on it for now.
His comments were made during a Q2 earnings report, where he stated that Disney Plus productions get better, the subscription fee may grow as well. “We launched with an extremely attractive opening price point on Disney Plus, and we’ve been very comfortable with the price value relationship that we’ve offered,” Chapek said. “As we increase our content investment, we believe that that’s going to give us the ability to adjust our price.”
He goes on to say that a tier with ads may become an option in the future, using subscription fees and advertisements to keep the platform going. “Using some of our other services we can see the additive nature of an ad driven service that enables us to keep the price lower,” he states. “Of course, that’s made up for by the additional revenue that we will get per user on the advertising spending. So we believe that we can move up and cascade up our net price over time given the tremendous value that we started with.”
Disney Plus incurred one price increase last year, going up by one dollar on all tiers. Netflix recently followed suit, and it’s been reported that a lower-priced version with ads might be coming down the pike.
The reception to these moves has been mixed, to say the least. Higher prices and potentially disruptive ads don’t beget great user experience, and with more and more services available, such as Paramount Plus, Shudder, Amazon Prime Video, and so on, the market is getting competitive.
That said, when your platforms offer Pixar movies and Disney movies, and shows like Bridgerton, Stranger Things, and The Witcher, there’s a viewership that’ll pay whatever the cost.