Bob Chapek thinks Disney + could cost a lot more because the catalog is worth it

Last August The Walt Disney Company announced a price increase for the Disney + subscription in the United States starting December 8, date on which the advertising version of the streaming platform will be released. That version will be called Disney + Basic and will cost the same as Disney + right now: $ 7.99 per month. For those who don’t want advertising (i.e. as before) they will have Disney + Premium available, which will cost $ 10.99 per month or $ 109.99 per year. This is a 38% price increase.

Despite this increase, Bob Chapek believes that this price is still very low for the catalog he offers. According to Variety, the company’s CEO even said at a tech conference: “I think we are priced very low compared to the value we provide”. The manager leaves the D23 Expo 2022 with a strengthened spirit, ensuring that he has done so “superabundance of riches in terms of the infinite amount of content that will come from our creative engines” and that the catalog continues to gain value. Chapek describes the subscription price they debuted with in 2019, $ 6.99 per month, as “rather absurd” Y believes that the possible loss of subscribers with the new price increase will be “insignificant”.

The future: integration of Hulu and ESPN +

Regarding the expansion of subscription types, with or without advertising, Bob Chapek comments that the company is “indifferent” to what is preferred by viewers and sees this expansion of products as a way to “provide different consumer needs”. Speaking of expansion, Its plans continue to add Hulu and ESPN + content to the Disney + catalog, but above all the former would require the purchase of 33% of the shares of the live and on-demand television service from Comcast (owner of Universal Pictures).. They won’t be able to bid until January 2024, but Chapek says so “they would like to get to that point”. Here in Spain, most of Hulu’s content already reaches us via Disney + thanks to Star, the platform’s adult brand, but there are still titles that arrive by other means (‘What we do in the shadows’, for example, debuts. first on HBO Max) or that directly haven’t arrived yet.

Disney +’s long-term goal, says Bob Chapek, is to make it happen “a participation platform” which is not “only a film service”. This would be related to the idea of ​​later launching a subscription that covers more than streaming and that includes some kind of perk in other corporate products, such as merchandising or theme parks. “We can now personalize an experience far beyond what has ever been possible.” We still don’t know anything about this more complete package, but get ready to open your wallet a little more.