New York City (CNN Business) Disney+ just got more expensive. Unless you don’t mind seeing ads. The new subscription tier for Disney+ will start on December 8 and cost $7.99 a month in the US, the company said on Wednesday. If that price seems familiar, it’s because it is. Right now, that’s how much people pay for Disney+ without ads.
The premium level of Disney+ that doesn’t have ads will now cost $3 more per month, or $10.99. This is the biggest price increase for the channel since it started in November 2019. In March of 2021, it raised prices by $1.
The price of Disney+ is going up because the service had a great quarter. In the third quarter, 14.4 million people signed up for the service, which was more than what Wall Street had expected. At the moment, 152.1 million people use the service.
Read More –
- Six People Shot At Atlanta Park; One Dead, 6-Year-Old Critically Injured (Breaking News).
- BBC, CNN and other broadcasters announce a suspension of operations in Russia.
After hours, shares went up by as much as 6.5% because of the news.
As for the company’s overall earnings, Disney (DIS) made $21.5 billion in sales for the second quarter, which is 26% more than the same time last year, and a net profit of $1.4 billion, which is 53% more than the same time last year.
Disney said that 221 million people subscribe to its different streaming services. Netflix has 220.6 million subscribers.
Disney also changed its long-term predictions, which said that it would have between 230 million and 260 million subscribers by the end of the fiscal year 2024. On Wednesday, it said that 135 million to 165 million people would sign up for its main Disney+ product and that as many as 80 million people would use its Disney+ Hotstar service in India.
Bob Chapek, the CEO of Disney, said in a letter to investors on Wednesday, “We had a great quarter. Our world-class creative and business teams drove great results at our domestic theme parks, big increases in live sports viewership, and significant subscriber growth at our streaming services.”
Why The price of Disney+ is Going Up?
Disney’s other streaming services are also getting more expensive. The price of Hulu, which is mostly owned by Disney, will go up by $1 to $7.99 for the version with ads and by $2 to $14.99 for the version without ads.
The premium Disney Bundle, which includes Disney+, Hulu with no ads, and ESPN+, will not go up in price. Its cost remains $19.99.
Disney+ now has movies that are rated R. This seems to be Disney’s way of trying to get people to sign up for all of its services instead of just one. And from a pricing point of view, it’s hard to say no to a bundle with three services that costs just $9 more per month than Disney’s biggest service.
Disney (DIS) is also putting out two new plans for bundles: One has ads on Disney+ and Hulu for $9.99, and the other has ads on all three services for $12.99.
Also, Check –
- Former NFL Safety William White Dead From ALS At 56( Latest News)
- Johnny Depp Makes £3m In Hours Through Sales of His Art (Complete News)
It looks like the new goal of media companies is to connect streaming services together.
Take, for example, Warner Bros. Discovery. Last week, the company that owns CNN said that next summer it would combine its two streaming services, HBO Max and Discovery+. If the first part of the streaming revolution, which started around 2017, was the “Streaming Wars,” the next part could be called the “Rumble of the Bundles.”
So, why is your streaming budget about to get hit again? It’s because it costs a lot of money to make a successful streaming service.
Services like Disney+ spend millions, if not billions, of dollars on new content that will appeal to both old and new subscribers, as well as on the expensive infrastructure needed to keep everything running. Exhibit A: In the third quarter, Disney’s direct-to-consumer business lost $1.06 billion, which is about four times what it was a year ago.
Stay tuned for more updates, Nog Magazine.