Disney is \u201cexploring a free product\u201d for streaming customers, CEO Josh D\u2019Amaro confirmed in a call with investors today.<\/p>\n
D\u2019Amaro, who succeeded Bob Iger as Disney\u2019s chief in March, said that a free Disney-owned streaming service would help Disney reach more \u201cprice-sensitive\u201d customers, which is a \u201cstrategic priority\u201d for Disney, according to a transcript<\/a> of the call.<\/p>\n A free streaming service would also generate more ad revenue, which has become increasingly important for streaming services challenged by plateauing subscriber numbers, subscriber churn, and competition from cheaper<\/a> and free rivals<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cUnlike a lot of our AVOD\u00a0[advertising video on demand] competitors, we\u2019re fairly well-sold, meaning more inventory would actually help us accelerate our ad revenue growth,\u201d D\u2019Amaro said.<\/p>\n A free streaming product might also generate more interest in Disney+ subscriptions, the executive added.<\/p>\n \u201cA free offering could help us drive top-of-funnel Disney+ subscriber growth,\u201d D\u2019Amaro said, using a marketing term referring to the earliest stage of the customer acquisition funnel, where the focus is on building awareness. \u201cNothing specific to announce today, but definitely something that we\u2019re considering.\u201d<\/p>\n Disney executives didn\u2019t detail what a free, Disney-owned streaming offering would look like. But a report from Business Insider<\/a> last month claimed that the company was \u201cdiscussing making some content accessible on Disney+ without a paywall, according to two people familiar with the matter.\u201d The report noted that Adam Smith, chief product and technology officer at Disney, discussed free streaming content during a company meeting for streaming employees but \u201cdidn\u2019t share a timeline for this initiative or a sense of the scope.\u201d<\/p>\n A free tier could help Disney+ stand out from other subscription video-on-demand platforms, like Netflix and HBO Max, amid frustration<\/a> with constantly rising prices<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Disney is \u201cexploring a free product\u201d for streaming customers, CEO Josh D\u2019Amaro confirmed in a call with investors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-803891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}