In this What's On Disney Plus Podcast episode, Roger discusses some of today's biggest Disney+ news, including:
What’s On Disney Plus Podcast
Could ABC, ESPN & Disney Channels Go Dark On DirecTV? + Star India Merger Update | Disney Plus News
In this What's On Disney Plus Podcast episode, Roger discusses some of today's biggest Disney+ news, including: Disney & DirecTV Clash – ABC, ESPN + More Channels Could Go Dark This Weekend ESPN Updates Disney Star & Reliance Move One Step Closer To Mega $8.5 Billion Merger Question Of The Day
- Duration:
- 11m
- Broadcast on:
- 29 Aug 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
Coming up, I'm going to be talking about how some Disney channels could be going dark this weekend. Plus also, I'm going to be giving an update on the merger between Disney's star in India and Reliance. But before we go any further, make sure you do hit that subscribe button to keep up with the latest Disney+ news. Hi, it's Roger here from what's on at Disney+.com, it's time for a quick Disney+ news roundup. So let's start off with talking about some major news which could impact on people that are subscribed to a direct TV because negotiations are currently in place and the carriage deals set to expire on the 1st of September. So they signed a five year deal back in 2019 and that's all kind of coming to enter. At the minute, we're seeing a lot of words from both companies, both kind of putting out there that they really kind of want to change things up. Disney is sort of saying that direct TV wants some drastic changes and there's being kind of in some ways being unreasonable. But also direct TV are saying, look, the cable's changing, we need to change. This is not kind of all coming about as well because of the lawsuit that was taking place earlier this year with venue sports and FUBA with a lot of extra information came out which actually the cable companies are going to try and use to try and leverage, try and get better deals. Now we're in this kind of weird thing cable where it's kind of, you know, it's dropping off, there's less than as people that are there but each of the major studios is still trying to cling on to whatever's left and then we're trying to make those little changes. Now, direct TV, they want massive sweeping changes, they want to be able to offer very slimline bundles, they don't want you paying for channels that you don't want to watch. Disney have kind of counteracted and kind of said, look, here's the offer that we gave to Spectrum last year, you know, get Disney Plus, get less channels and also some other options as well. They're then saying, you know, that's not enough, we want more and yeah, we could see a major change happen this weekend, you know, those Disney channels include ABC, ESPN, Nat Geo, et cetera, could be gone. Now, it'll be interesting to see if direct TV will take up the offer that Spectrum did where they got access to Disney Plus with ads and they lost a number of channels because if they do drop those channels, I wouldn't be at all surprised to things like Freeform, Nat Geo World, Disney XD, et cetera, get completely shut down because we get to a certain point where if so many of the big providers have kind of dropped those channels, they're not going to be sustainable to keep running. So, major, major changes, this could have a major impact on their, if they do make the deal, it could add maybe 11 million new subscribers, Disney Plus and the US. But also, direct TV is going the opposite way, they could have gone, yeah, we don't want your channels, you know, go away, you know, they're all at this point where they're all trying to fight for survival and they know if they don't make some changes, the whole industry's changing, the studios want to keep things as they are and try and give away as least about as possible and the cable providers want sweeping changes. The thing is, personally, I think the cable companies, they know that this is just dropping off, they're losing subscribers each and every single day and they're not being replaced and, you know, sports, channels and all the rest of it. Once ESPN's flagship platform launch is next year, there'll be no reason for people to have their ESPN access through cable, so this could all have massive implications and yeah, we're really going to see, again, I wouldn't be at all surprised if those channels go dark on Sunday and how long they go off, sometimes with these character disputes, they go on for day, sometimes they get avoided at the last second, but either way, this is going to have major impact on what happens with the future of cable, it is falling apart and obviously Disney Plus and ESPN Plus and all the rest of it are all going to be massive parts of where they move forward, you know, last year, direct TV said they wanted a similar deal to a spectrum, but now it seems like things have moved on and then, again, they just want to, in some ways, just offer just the sports channels, you know, they don't want to include other things, but I, again, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we see a lot more slim lining of those channels and we're going to see a much more focused cable television network from the US, but yeah, this is massive news, there could be a lot happening over the coming week ahead, because a few days ago, they still got time, the fact that Disney took it out public, direct TV put out like a note a few days before, kind of calling for, you know, sweeping changes and that it's all the studios fault for not, you know, making any changes, it catch 22, either way you look at it, you know, the studios need the cable providers, but that's the problem, they don't necessarily need them the same way and that's what the cable problem is having an issue with, is suddenly the power is sort of switching away from in that respect, but also Disney and other studios as well want that income from cable, they don't want to completely give it up, but definitely next year, when that flagship ESPN thing comes out, that's kind of drastically changed things, but I love to hear your thoughts on all this in the comments below. Speaking of ESPN, there was a media day yesterday, there was a lot of ESPN news came out, that was kind of the big main thing, there wasn't a huge amount of like official Disney news, because it was all coming out of ESPN, and kind of again, we're talking about the flagship, which is their new direct to consumer, that's the kind of the code name for where they're going to be able to get access to full ESPN online through streaming, you're going to be able to get access to it through Disney Plus, and they're kind of saying, you know, it's going to be somewhere between the price of ESPN Plus, which is about 12, 13 bucks, and normal cable television, so it's like quite a big range, I think most people are expecting maybe about 25 bucks a month, that's going to include all of the ESPN content, I'm still not convinced that ESPN Plus is needed as well as that, I'm sure it's going to get swallowed up, I'm sure they're going to sort something out of it, because I just can't understand why we want three different versions of ESPN, it'd be more simpler, but obviously ESPN is going to become a hub in Disney Plus in the United States in December, it's already a hub now in Latin America, and I suspect it's going to be coming to other regions as well, because at the same time, they're an absolutely 12 year deal for the US Open with some international rights, they've also been making announcements about college football, where they've got access as well there, yeah so lots and lots of stuff really happening of ESPN, I think they're really leaning in on that, but let me know, are you interested in watching Sport on Disney Plus, love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below. Shifting gears now, let's now talk about the merger between Disney Star, which is the Indian company that they have out there, where it has all of like 100 plus linear channels, it has Disney Plus Hotstar, they're trying to merge it with Reliance, and it's been going through the legal process, it did get a major step forward, just getting through one of the commissions, now they just got one more step to get through, which is expected to happen, and then maybe within the next six months they'll be able to finalize deal and get it sorted, and that's going to bring together Jylo Cinema and also Disney Plus Hotstar, it's going to combine a lot of stuff, we don't know exactly what they had to give up to get the deal through, they had to close down some channels, maybe also they had to agree to not put up the pricing on advertising, but yeah so there's going to be a big shift in the next year or so in India, as I suspect Disney Plus Hotstar is going to get merged in with Jylo Cinema to become this massive great big streaming service to compete with Netflix, this all in some ways probably will bring down the overall number of how many Disney Plus subscribers there are, but ironically it'll boost up the income because that money will then come in as licensing money, and again all that content will be in there, it's just they don't need to have two platforms, they can save a lot of money, and it's going to be a big thing, there was talk that Disney might pull out of India, but this is a way of keeping in there, but they're in some ways kind of allowing somebody else to take control that knows the market a lot better than the Disney execs do, so it's, I think this is probably going to be a good thing in the long run for subscribers, but obviously less competition, but we're really seeing now when people talk about competition stuff, you know we're seeing a lot of big mergers, and so on, you know we're seeing like Netflix and Amazon are now becoming the big competition, and the other ones are having to compete with them, no longer is it just a traditional way of kind of like Paramount, Comcast, Disney etc, now you've got Netflix and Amazon are kind of the two big main ones kind of coming and sweeping everything up, but let me know what you think of this in the comments below. In our question of the day, which comes from Moody, he says, "Do you think we could ever get a new Disney Plus original? What do they actually have besides Goosebumps and Percy Jackson?" So this is in reference to the news early this week that which mountain Disney Plus series have been cancelled, and we are really seeing now that Disney Plus is not really making original content, we've seen them drastically cut back, we know that the Marvel and Star Wars are still making shows, but they're making a lot less, Pixar is kind of going back to just making movies with the odd little series and shorts here and there, Disney is in some ways respected, just going back to being the Disney channel, so they're just doing what they're doing, Nat Geo, most of their stuff now is going over to Hulu and Hulu and Disney Plus because of its maturity in the US. Again, we have just seen them all pulling back and in some ways Disney was making stuff of all this content for more than different studios, they didn't need to necessarily be making all these originals. But we are really seeing now the term a new Disney Plus original that's exclusive there, especially with series, we're seeing a lot less, a lot less to talk about, a lot less to watch, losses, it's just very, very noticeable that there is a lot, lot less coming out. And I don't think that's going to be changing, I think this is how it's going to become, I think we're going to see a shift to the fact that all the studios are putting out their content as they do, it'll go out on linear and it'll go out on streaming and yeah, you can really see now that all the focus on the general entertainment stuff is on the Hulu side and the Star side and the Disney Plus side is not really pulling it in. I think a lot of this is down to, and I've said this before, I don't think there's a lot of interest in family friendly content right now, I don't think the audience is interested, I think younger kids aren't interested in it as well, adults want something a little bit more edgy, teenagers definitely want something a little bit more edgy than Disney put out and they've just been wasting the money making all these like vanilla shows which nobody's interested in and yeah, it was just a waste of time. So now putting that effort into just the studios putting out the stuff that's right for that market but it is a shame, it's just unfortunate, it's the market we can see it right now but also making these big expensive fantasy shows that appeal maybe to a larger audience, that is a bit more friendly for me, are so expensive and when they go wrong or they don't appeal right, it just does, it's just too risky for them so they're definitely, you can see there that we've got different stuff coming in but also like I said, teenagers are liking different content now, there's a lot, you know, enjoying international stuff, you've also got anime, adult animation, there's so much stuff being put out and I think the concept of trying to make a show for like a 10 to 15 year old and maybe with their family, I just don't think that audience is there in the same way that it once was but anyway, I'd love to know your thoughts and all this in the comments below, remember to go check us out over at what's on at DisneyPlus.com, like, follow and subscribe and I should see if I see you later. 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