In the United States, the Disney and Warner groups intend to offer a unique formula with access to Disney+, Max and Hulu. The isolationist approach of brands, with one service per studio, seems destined to change.
When Netflix abandoned DVD for streaming, the entertainment industry underestimated the coming revolution. She first contributed to the success of her future rival by making her productions available to him, before starting to question this strategy. If millions of people are willing to pay for a Netflix subscription to watch movies every month, why wouldn’t they be willing to give that money directly to them? With a separate subscription?
Quickly, everyone got involved. Disney+, Max, Paramount+, Universal+, Peacock, Starz… The biggest studios on the planet have launched streaming services, hoping that Netflix subscribers would subscribe to them in turn. Added to the entertainment giants are new players like Amazon and Apple, who have also bet on streaming. In short, to watch everything today, you have to subscribe to a lot of things.
A few years later, the results are not the same for everyone. Netflix undoubtedly reigns in subscriber numbers, while piracy is on the rise again. Studios are now considering a new strategy: selling bundles.
Disney and Warner announce historic merger
In October 2023, Brian Comiskey, responsible for monitoring technological developments at CES in Las Vegas, announced in an interview with Numerama that streaming would begin a revolution in 2024. According to him, mergers between different services were inevitable, the fault of a too many services. The Disney group, quite quickly, announced the merger of its two streaming services, Disney+ and Hulu (hence the new logo).
In a press release published on May 8, 2024, the Warner Bros. group. Discovery goes even further. This summer, the American sites of Disney+ and Max, which will soon arrive in France, will offer Disney+/Hulu/Max bundles with or without advertisements. The price is unknown, but marks a major change for consumers. For the first time, Star Wars And Game Of Thrones will coexist on the same platform (in the same way as The simpsons Or Avatarresulting from the acquisition of Fox by Disney).
France, a pioneer in merged streaming
And France in all this? In the United States, a “small” French group is particularly scrutinized: Canal+. With its Cinema/Series offer which brings together Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+ and soon Max, the French preceded the trend years before anyone else. The Canal+ test certainly played a role in the decision of Warner and Disney, who must have noted the effectiveness of such an offer.
Who will be the next victims of the streaming war? Faced with piracy, American broadcasters are preparing a single platform for sport, bringing together the rights of all platforms. These tests, if successful, could herald a new era for streaming, with fewer platforms (and samples every month).
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