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Businesses Movies Television

Disney+ Has More Than 73 Million Subscribers (techcrunch.com) 41

Disney+, the streaming service that launched one year ago today, grew to 73.7 million paid subscribers as of early October. TechCrunch reports: That's according to The Walt Disney Company's fourth-quarter earnings report, which covers the company's finances through October 3. The company previously said Disney+ had 60.5 million subscribers as of August 3. The release also includes subscriber numbers for Disney's other streaming services -- Hulu had 36.6 million (including 4.1 million subscribers to Hulu + Live TV), while ESPN had 10.3 million (more than doubling from 3.5 million a year earlier).

Overall, Disney's direct-to-consumer segment saw revenue grow 41% year-over-year to $4.9 billion, while its operating loss fell from $751 million in Q4 2019 to $580 million this year. Disney attributed the shrinking losses to "improved results at Hulu and ESPN+, partially offset by higher costs at Disney+, driven by the ongoing rollout." It was a tough quarter for Disney overall, with the pandemic forcing the company to keep some parks closed and the rest operating at reduced capacity. Disney's revenue fell to $14.7 billion (compared to $19.1 billion during Q4 2019), with a loss of $0.39 per share.

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Disney+ Has More Than 73 Million Subscribers

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  • by labnet ( 457441 ) on Thursday November 12, 2020 @09:34PM (#60718058)

    We subscribed for 2 months, mainly for Hamilton, watched what we wanted and have dropped it.
    The target market is probably to babysit pre teens... which is a big market.

    • It is cheaper than a babysitter....

    • My own subscription model is subscribe for a month or 2 especially if there is a "deal". Watch until I get caught up or the deal gives out then unsubscribe. I had disney+ early this year, binged thru some shows including The Mandalorian. Then cancelled. I just started subscribing again to watch the Mandalorian and when it is done airing new episodes I will let my subscription drop again. I do Netflix the same way. I currently have Epix and Showtime thru Prime Video only because they had a 2 months for
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      And Star Wars fans. The Mandalorian is their biggest hit so far, and it's not bad. The egg eating thing was an unexpected political statement.

      They have most of the Marvel stuff too, except the best Marvel which was the Netflix shows.

  • by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Thursday November 12, 2020 @09:34PM (#60718062) Journal

    In the grand scheme of things, that is slightly more votes than the President got, so YMMV.

  • Only one question (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter AT tedata DOT net DOT eg> on Thursday November 12, 2020 @09:37PM (#60718070) Journal

    How many are paying?

    Because Disney gave away a lot of free one-year-promo subscriptions. Let's see how much retention there is a year from now.

    • Yep, a lot of Verizon (I think) subscribers got a year of it free. I saw some stats, which I can't find now, that showed a significant number of people recently reactivated their subscription just for The Mandalorian.

      • by leonbev ( 111395 )

        Verizon is STILL offering "free" Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions for their "Unlimited" plan subscribers. Otherwise, I probably would have canceled my plan as soon as season 2 of The Mandalorian was over.

      • This is the best thing about Netflix, Disney+ and other streaming platforms. It's super easy to cancel you subscription if they don't have any content, and then sign up for a single month just to catch a couple shows. With cable, it's impossible to turn it off and on so easily. There is often hardware involved such as set top boxes which have to be returned, and they will often charge activation fees or setup fees even if you already have everything set up and can just plug it in yourself. Personally, I

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They couldn't have predicted coronavirus but by giving away a year for free probably saved many parents a great deal of stress and hooked them as customers for their babysitting service.

  • Google news keeps bombarding me with news on The Mandalorian. I haven't watched it (as I don't subscribe to Disney+ currently) but I have an hypothesis from what I have read.

    There is a reason why they never sell "The Child" as "Baby Yoda" (the latter being the popular name). I believe it is because "The Child" is another of Yoda's species but not actually Yoda. When we find out the true identity of "The Child" we'll all be left wishing we hadn't referred to it as "Baby Yoda".
    • by leonbev ( 111395 )

      I'm thinking that "Baby Yoda" is actually the child of Sith Lord... it would explain why he was heartlessly munching on those baby frog creatures like they were candy, anyway. It might be cute, but I'm sensing the Dark Side in that little muppet.

      • I'm thinking that "Baby Yoda" is actually the child of Sith Lord... it would explain why he was heartlessly munching on those baby frog creatures like they were candy, anyway. It might be cute, but I'm sensing the Dark Side in that little muppet.

        Why would it require lineage to determine whether they go Sith? The Dark Side is seductive. Both Luke and Anakin had a choice. Even Kylo started learning under Luke but flipped because of his feelings for his grandpa. As of right now, we don't know anything; we just suspect that this child may be prodigious with the Force, and that it's the same species as Yoda.

    • Well duh. The problem is that Yoda's species was never named.

      • And that was the way that George Lucas wanted it. Not that LucasFilm under Disney cares too much for what Lucas thought these days anyway.

    • I believe it is because "The Child" is another of Yoda's species but not actually Yoda.

      Favreau already said explicitly that "Baby Yoda" is not actually Yoda, though will not say if tis related or not.

      People call "The Child" Baby Yoda because it's easy and cute, even though everyone knows it's not actually Yoda. It's just the generic term now a lot of people use. Imagine it as a shorthand for "Baby of the same species as Yoda".

      When we find out the true identity of "The Child" we'll all be left wishing we h

    • The Mandalorian takes place after Return of the Jedi. About 900 years too late to see Yoda as a baby.

      Nobody thinks "Baby Yoda" is literally Yoda. It's just a nickname because nobody knows what the species is called.

      • The Mandalorian takes place after Return of the Jedi. About 900 years too late to see Yoda as a baby.

        Nobody thinks "Baby Yoda" is literally Yoda. It's just a nickname because nobody knows what the species is called.

        Right? I was just thinking last night, "why do we call it 'baby Yoda?'" and I realized that (aside from --possibly-- other media), there's been no mention as to Yoda's species. Is it Degobahan? But that was just exile, IIRC.

  • TRON Uprising (Score:4, Interesting)

    by t0qer ( 230538 ) on Thursday November 12, 2020 @10:42PM (#60718210) Homepage Journal

    I have plex, sabnzb, subscription to NZBGeek and newshosting, along with subs to netflix, hulu, prime. Season 1 of Mando I pirated.. So why would I sub to disney?

    I started off with a free month. I started watching some of the shows. The Right Stuff is pretty good. Then I watched a few movies I loved as a kid, the Jungle Book, the cat from outer space. Tonight I just finished watching TRON Uprising. Really undermarketed, undersold show with some fairly epic voice talents. (Imagine Pee Wee Herman as a murderous sociopath/sycophant)

    I watched Uprising years ago on and off when it first came out on broadcast. Now I binged it, and there are rumors of Disney making a season 2. I don't know of many geeks from my era that weren't absolutely enamored with the original, or even more so with Legacy.. Uprising though is such an undiscovered gem that sort of unfairly got shoved into a bad time slot, and at the time was probably too adult for Disney XD. At least now there is a chance of the series continuing if the ratings are good enough on Disney+

    And believe me, I normally HATE all things Disney. I have a branch of my family that stole millions over the years from my grandmother to fund their fucking cultish yearly Disney vacations. They have custom Disney ironwork in the shape of Mickey ears on their front step, a bathroom with spots like 101 dalmations, and the fuckers buy all these inbred dalmations that have the personality of a cat that overdosed on LSD.

    I kind of realize now, it's not disney's fault my family is like that... Not everyone that enjoys Disney movies are cult members... That being said despite a few bad things about Disney, there's a lot of good content in there. Mandolorian is great, and I have always loved Tron. I binged Star Wars Rebels, which was awesome too. Some of their shows are good, and some are shit filler. Same can be said for any of the streaming services.

    All being said, I see no reason to cancel my subscription. I like what I'm getting, for less than I'm paying for Netflix.

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      As with all streaming services, either it fits into the rotation of services or not. For me Disney's is just kids stuff, maybe for a month or three probably next year some time. Recently just dropped a service after burning through the best content and ignoring the trash (way too much reality garbage). I could not imagine lasting more than three months with Disney and with regard to content advertising, I see so little of it, it has zero impact on choices.

    • I don't have to imagine it, I've seen the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer Movie.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I wish they would sort TRON out. Legacy was okay, not the best but not terrible, and the soundtrack is incredible. Uprising was cancelled just as it was really going somewhere.

      They need to get the right writer and directory on board to do re-launch movie. Rian Johnson would be ideal, just the right mix of bold ideas, great twists and occasional humour for that franchise.

  • Stressed out Covid 'homeschool' parents, and people waiting for the next Star Wars hit. We're a little of both in this house.
  • Is society that far down the road to destruction?
  • Odd coincidence. Wait so either by coincidence or (lol) design, they managed to launch a "successful" streaming service when their parks would get impacted by COVID-19? I wish many were so lucky, sheesh.
    • That makes a market of 600 million households, by managing to convince 30% of it, that gives you more than 200 million subscriptions ... Already, just with that, with the future increases in the price of the subscription (we can suppose to go up to 10 $ / € per month, they arrive a turnover of more than 20 billion dollars. For a whole subsidiary. just launched, it's huge! And yes, I can't wait to see what they will do with Marvel and Star Wars, two "series" that I love, and I hope they will bring out
  • We got Disney+ to watch wholesome kids movies, but they are really pushy on evil things.

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