In this What's On Disney Plus Podcast episode, Roger discusses some of today's biggest Disney+ news, including:
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Coming up, I'm only talking about how Disney Plus is adding some more features, how it hasn't been that successful on Spectrum, plus also I'll be talking about the Accolite finale. But before we go any further make sure you do hit that subscribe button to keep up with the latest Disney Plus News. Hi everyone it's Roger here from what's on at DisneyPlus.com, it's time for a quick Disney Plus News roundup. Let's start off with talking about cable because last year Disney and Charter did a deal where we should see Spectrum customers be able to get access to Disney Plus for free. Now it would be the ad supported tier and if you're on the sports bundle you'd also get access to ESPN Plus earlier this year that then went active. Big boost for Disney because they were able to sell millions of subscriptions to both platforms in bulk and it's like discount of course but still they make some money from this. As part of the deal some of the channels were removed from Spectrum including like free form and overall it seemed like it was a good thing for Disney, good thing for Spectrum customers. The idea as well that it would help improve engagement terms for advertising. However according to Puck pick up of these free apps is pretty low in the single digit numbers they're not quite sure quite what that means in terms of percentages or whatever. Disney hasn't really been advertising this Spectrum hasn't really been advertising but there's just not a lot of people that have access to these free accounts are just not taking a pump on it maybe they just don't know about it again maybe they're not promoting it enough but there are also some other issues involved here maybe if you've got Disney Plus where if I'll add you're like well I don't want that because it's got the ads I don't really need it maybe you've got the hulu bundle maybe got the Disney streaming one I need so therefore all of this stuff just doesn't really apply you like I don't need to get the free version because I'm already getting a good version of it so I don't need it I would say no if you are a Spectrum customer and you do have Disney Plus with our ads and maybe like look at it activate it and maybe you could activate it and use it for a family member or someone that might not have Disney Plus maybe kind of go look I'm not using it do you want to take it you know that might be an option as well but I feel this is very much a short-term boost for Disney it also helps with spectrum in terms of not losing more customers to cord cutting but this doesn't feel like the long term it's going to be good investment not a lot of people using it obviously the data is going to show that that's not going to generally improve viewership that much and just as a whole this feels again just a short-term gap just to fill this in while cable continues just to drop off as more and more people just don't need it and I think as sports starts becoming more available on streaming we're going to see another big wave of people cutting it but if you are a cable spectrum provider let our customer let me know have you actually taken out the deal I'd love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below speaking of trying to improve engagement and viewership I'm according to the Wall Street Journal there are going to be some changes coming to Disney Plus because their development teams are working on a number of things to try and improve things so early this year I spoke about how Disney was looking to add some live channels to the platform that has been confirmed by Wall Street Journal that that's in development again no official word on when this is coming so don't it's not official in terms of nothing coming out some of the channels being thrown around include Marvel, Star Wars, The Simpsons the idea really is this will help improve engagement get more people watching Disney Plus for longer which is what they're really starting to focus on that they're much more focused on how many hours per subscriber they get from you rather than just money because they know they need you to keep you in there because that also means more advertising revenue these live channels will definitely help we're just kind of keeping that on the background no word yet on if it has ads or not it might depend on your tier and imagine they are going to include ads in them there's also the other element of is this just going to be available for Disney Plus subscribers or will they open this up to allow people maybe without a subscription to come in and start kind of leaning in a little bit more on that fast platform starts really growing Disney might be like no no no we want you we still want your subscription thing but we want to just try and offer more engagement so these channels I also would not expect them to be like live stream versions of like Disney channel ABC I wouldn't these are going to be a little bit different he's just going to be lists that just run of because constant continuous content 24/7 so don't expect it to be like a direct live stream of just a Disney channel Disney Juno anything like that these would be special ones so a lot of other platforms have been doing this I think it just makes so much sense why they don't do this improve improve engagement but also in general we've not really seen any major big changes to Disney Plus in terms of how the front page looks for years we've seen them add little bits pieces and changing stuff but it's still the very much those way it looks it's still a curated by hand so what that means is at the minute Disney staff go in and kind of arrange the front page of how they want it focusing on stuff that's maybe relevant right now and trying to get you to watch it however Bob Iga has spoken in the past about wanting to have more technology involved so they are looking at having more algorithms in place where they start having things being added onto your home page based on your viewing habits and that's something that they want to add more and they want to try and catch up with Netflix so we could see some big changes to the front page of Disney Plus I think it desperately needs it sometimes some of the recommendations are bizarre you've just watched a Walking Dead and they ask you do want to watch Bluey it's like no very very different you kind of want to jump in and watch some different kinds of thing also with the addition of Hulu on Disney Plus they are seeing now engagement drastically improve for Disney Plus for people that have it through the Disney Plus app they're apparently looking at people kind of going are you a Disney Plus person or a Hulu person and they have really found that the Hulu Hub has really drastically improved how much time people will watch Hulu content within Disney Plus just do amount of stuff so they want to try and get more curated stuff from that and just leaning in on it they want to catch up with Netflix they know they're going to do better you're going to have to look at Netflix or YouTube and realize that that algorithm feeds off what you're watching and just is a much more curated list sometimes you go on to that front page and like you're showing me stuff I've already seen I've seen that scene that scene that scene that like you know the whole half the front page sometimes was like it should be like rotating around to try and improve stuff to try and get you to watch stuff but maybe you haven't watched or things that you've watched again and maybe like I'll watch this again that kind of thing so we are going to see some more improvements again all part of our way of trying to get you to watch more Disney Plus this is what they're really going for now and really pushing towards it's not just about getting subscribers it's about getting that you just stay but more importantly just to keep watching so they can make more money from advertising that's the key element there so lots of big stuff to go on with that one let's now talk about Star Wars the acolyte so the we just had the season finale and just air on Disney Plus overnight so I will be kind of going to spoiler so if you haven't seen it yet and just be aware of that one so my initial thoughts on the episode this was a big improvement over last week which sucked and this one was a lot better lots of more there were some decent fight scenes a bit more and Kung Fu stuff which I liked in there kind of had the big fight off between the the sisters you've also had so and also that that fighting some little cameos in here there's one at the very ends that kind of I think everyone's been expecting but it was nice to see that one popping up and maybe setting up the potential for what's happening with season two but also in some way leaving it wide enough open that if they don't do a season two it's not going to matter but it does feel like they definitely if we don't get a season two announcement at D23 I'd be very very surprised I think they've kind of been leaning in on that one there's also another character that pops up in a cave when they leave when a knife is like oh this could directly improve ends of on who trains the emperor so this could be how this one goes I think Duff Plagueis or something like that trying to get the name right on that one could be not necessarily could be someone different could be their father or I don't know it could be you know it depends on how time works and stuff but there was definitely a hint of something going on there which could be interesting in the long run for overall it definitely wrapped up we're definitely seeing kind of the Jedi you know like I don't even want to know what to hit nor name with a character's green character she is kind of hiding stuff and it seems very weird and not very Jedi like trying to protect them but also more importantly that we find out that I think it's um whoever I can't see this is the trouble with this show these characters are just so mere that I can't even remember what half of these characters are called because it just it just doesn't click do they haven't got that kind of connection the main the main villain in it obviously he was the apprentice of the green woman there we go so just like looking at these characters and going what are they called I don't know this it's it's just not good but I thought it was a solid episode felt a little bit rushed I felt like we're gonna done with being maybe twice as long or last week's episode having more to do with this one obviously we see soul everything kind of gets wrapped up so we know the fact that you know we don't you know so the things what they talked about in Phantom Menus about they're being no sift nobody's aware of it no one's seen it because that entire group that had seen them has all died so yeah it kind of made sense of why they did that one but overall so it's a bit of a messy series there were some good bits there was a few good episodes like episode four was good episode five um the last episode I did enjoy but it is a bumpy bumpy road it was not a straight easy just win-win-win there's a lot of decisions in this show which I'm not entirely convinced with the right things for them to do I didn't need to if they do your season two they are really gonna have to look at like how they can do this I in some ways can they wrap it up or can they is in can they just leave this one open but it was very left wide open for a potential second season but it's gonna be hard the viewership isn't good there's a bit of negativity about this series and maybe we're gonna make some changes or just completely leaning on it um I don't know very very weird situation for this show um I don't know it's what do you think do you think they should do a second season I know when I've asked on Facebook a load of people were like no no no it's rubbish if I watched I didn't watch it after this like well if you didn't watch it after the first episode and you then like no they shouldn't just like well those of us that have watched it maybe wanted to have the story at least finish um I don't know it's a very weird story I'm I'm still not like it's like it wasn't awful in the fact of all the you know there were some good bits in all of it the finale hit some points that I liked but I didn't have that excitement this morning when I got up and going oh my god it's the finale of the accolade it's like oh yeah I suppose I better watch this one before I wanted to get on and watch it before there was any spoilers um but yeah it just definitely feels like a disappointment it didn't match up to what I was hoping for when we first started hearing about it and yeah I don't know I in some ways of like do we need a second season I don't know if they do do it there's plenty of scope for them to kind of go on it but I don't know if they if they do anything with this series it's gonna have the what are the repercussions for the rest of the the universe it's very weird I'm just not sure about it but anyway let me know what you thought of the season finale of the accolade would love to hear your thoughts on that let's now do a question of the day which comes from lord ship he says do you know if 20th century fox maybe remove titles of older deals still in effect so there are still some effects of deals that are in place like with HBO and stars in the US most of them are kind of coming to the end but there are they are still there but also Disney are signing new deals with other platforms like Netflix and 2B etc where things are going to them like for example the last night I noticed like here in the UK like Amsterdam was on there rather than it's not I don't think it's out on Disney plus anymore here in the UK so they are making deals oh to me the streaming service is not a continuous loot of everything doesn't just stay there all the time things do move around and I think especially with 20th century studios titles they are much more likely to get least out and stuff because they don't necessarily connect with the same brand but I think most of the major problems that they had like with HBO and stuff seem to be coming to an end seem to be a lot less stuff going from there and going over to it but yeah unfortunately there is still going to be deals there's still stuff there's still a whole other issues as well like well we don't have to Netflix deal that's coming up when some tuddles might get removed we're just going to have to wait and see but unfortunately these deals are going to continue to happen in a while they still need to make money but I love to know your thoughts do you think these deals were good thing or a bad thing love to know your thoughts on that I'm going to go check us out over at what's on Disney Plus.com if you've got a great question pop it in below I'm a great one I will pick out for tomorrow's video obviously yesterday I spoke about a Disney hack and also Deadpool and Wolverine but on that note guys thank you very much for watching if you're going to see later's [BLANK_AUDIO]
