It has been one year now since Disney+ first went live in North America. Before it was released, the company was hoping to get 60 to 90 million subscribers in its first five years. Surprisingly, it accumulated around 57.5 million subscribers in less than one year. It might appear that all is going well for Disney+, but nothing can be further from the truth. Although it has Hamilton: The movie, which is the biggest debut of all streaming sites but all is not well when it comes to the output of original content by the streaming service. Irrespective of all the success, it is still struggling to create enough original content because of which it has one of the highest churn rates.
The Struggle of Disney+ for Original Content
Although the global health crisis has been dire for the overall economy, the increase in streaming has benefitted companies like Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu. But this, too, is a one-sided analysis since it has impacted the production of original content by every streaming company. Disney+ recently released the second season of The Mandalorian despite the health crisis, but it would be wrong to presume that it is the norm. It has to postpone many of its much-anticipated projects like the upcoming first MCU series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which was supposed to be released this August. As of now, the only MCU show that would possibly be released this year on the service is WandaVision.
Disney+ has done well despite several limitations on their production capabilities and has released a number of certified hits ever since it went live. The Mandalorian and Hamilton are not the only successful shows; several others like High School Musical: The Musical and the finale of Star Wars: The Clone Wars have done well. Movies like Mulan and Phineas & Ferb the Movie have been surprisingly successful as they have had one of the highest debuts for streaming titles this year.
Movies like Hamilton and Mulan were not supposed to be released online, and the decision to move them to Disney+ exclusives was taken because of the health care crisis and the lack of original content. It is no surprise that in the top 20 streaming debuts of this year, Disney+ had a total of five in which only two were supposed to be released online. The shift in the release is not only because of the healthcare crisis, but it was also an attempt to ensure that the churn rate of Disney+ was not worsened further, which has been a big issue with the streaming service.
Compared to other streaming services, the 14 movies released by Disney+ since its launch have lagged far behind. Netflix has released more original films than Disney in just one month in October 2020, while Amazon Prime has released a total of seven movies at the same time. HBO Max, on the other hand, which has decided to focus on the quality of the content, has released only four original movies since its launch this August. With two more movies yet to be released this year by HBO Max, it seems that Disney is lagging far behind its competition.
The healthcare crisis is not the only factor that has affected the production of Disney. Even before that, several TV series were moved to other streaming services because of a lack of commitment. It appears that the company has been continuously failing to produce original content and its needs to introspect its strategy. Most streaming sites have done remarkably well, and Disney+ needs to work hard to keep up; otherwise, its churn rate will have terrible consequences.
Although Disney+ has been trying hard and has consistently released TV series, it failed to impact. Other services such as Netflix, HBO Max, and Amazon Prime, on the other hand, have been exceptional. Almost all of the top TV series that have been streamed online this year are produced by the competitors of Disney+.
Irrespective of all the downsides, Disney+ has succeeded in getting over 60 million subscribers in just one year. Although there is a huge scope of improvement, Disney+ still has an advantage, and it needs to capitalize on its positives. The original content has been a big hurdle for the company; once it succeeds in overcoming it, the sky’s the limit for the streaming service.
Eva winget is a Microsoft Office expert and has been working in the technical industry since 2006. As a technical expert, Bella has written technical blogs, manuals, white papers, and reviews for many websites
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