Upcoming Disney+ Change Sounds Great But Could Go Very Wrong

Disney+ is about to get a major change, with the company aiming to focus fully around the platform it hopes will be a hub for everything. This sounds great on paper, but could be a major risk for the company for a number of reasons.

Disney’s plans for Disney+ carry some big risk

During Disney’s quarterly earnings call this week, new CEO Josh D’Amaro said that the company’s goal was to turn Disney+ into “the primary relationship between Disney and its fans, the place where everything comes together,” (via Variety) and that the hope is to make the streaming platform the “physical centerpiece” of Disney.

Just what this means is unknown as of now, but D’Amaro hinted that Disney fans would see everything about the company become “increasingly connected” through Disney+ in the long term. D’Amaro, who ran Disney’s parks division prior to being named CEO this year, seems to be hinting at wanting more people to visit the iconic theme parks, noting that “millions” of Disney+ subscribers don’t regularly visit the parks.

It’s here that the risk of what Disney is doing seems to be the most glaring. While making Disney+ a one-stop point of access for all things Disney is good, at its heart, the platform is still meant to be a place where fans can access movies and television shows. While it’s not shocking to see Disney want to expand Disney+’s scope, doing so could end up driving away more subscribers than its actually attempting to retain.

The news of Disney+’s expansion is no surprise, though. Last year, then-CEO Bob Iger said the platform was being built to be a “portal to all things Disney,” and could eventually include things like games, commerce, and even AI-generated content. While this all sounds nice in a pitch or meeting, fans and subscribers of the service were quick to buck against it, noting that there is rarely ever a desire to do any of that inside of a streaming platform.

If done right, Disney+ could expand to include even more of Disney and perhaps offer some awesome rewards and perks to those who might be even more into Disney than a normal subscriber (as they do now). If they’re not careful, though, Disney could lose the plot of what the platform really is all about and end up costing itself in the long run.

Source: Comingsoon.net