A new report detailed exactly what Disney+'s biggest problem is, and if Disney wants its platform to be at the top of the streaming food chain, it needs to find a way to fix it at all costs. Disney+ is undoubtedly one of the world's streaming giants, which is no surprise considering Disney has remained one of the top production companies for close to a century. While Disney+ has a strong subscriber base, a glaring issue with the platform has been revealed, and it could greatly hurt the House of Mouse in the long run.
According to new data that was shared by Sherwood, Disney has a major problem with its streaming platform, Disney+, in terms of what subscribers are pressing play on. If this trend continues, Disney could eventually have to entirely reevaluate its streaming strategy, as it could result in horrifying viewer numbers.
Specifically, the new data shows that 95% of Disney+'s total viewership comes from what is known as "catalog" content, which, in other words, means older releases. Therefore, that means that only 5% of viewership comes from new, original content that the platform produces.
For example, that means substantially more Disney+ subscribers are watching projects like the original Star Wars franchise or older Disney animated movies than they are original Disney+ releases, such as series like Percy Jackson and the Olympians or Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.
Essentially, this points to Disney+ subscribers using the platform as more of a library for classic Disney projects rather than a service to consume new content.
Now, this data makes a few things apparent. Most importantly, Disney is not producing original content that is engaging enough for subscribers to watch it. That could present a ton of long-term problems, as subscribers aren't going to want to watch the same old movies and shows over and over. After a while, if Disney+ doesn't have anything new on it that fans want to see, they will jump over to other platforms and cause Disney+ viewership to drop.
The data also directly affects Disney from a financial standpoint. Disney pours a ridiculous amount of money into its Disney+ original series, and if the company doesn't think it's getting a good return on its investments, it will simply begin to become much more picky with what it greenlights, and objectively good shows could become canceled.
For example, Disney spent more money making some Disney+ shows than it did making a lot of movies. Specifically, Andor cost the entertainment giant over $350 million, which is utterly jaw-dropping. It wasn't that big a deal for that series, since it was such a success in terms of viewership and in the way fans responded to it, but other expensive shows can't say the same.
For instance, The Acolyte's cost was $207 million. It was received horribly, and Disney decided to cancel it after just one season. Essentially, that was like Disney flushing all of that money down the drain. Similarly, Marvel's Secret Invasion came with a $224 million price tag. It is another series that fans criticized heavily, and seemingly did nothing positive for Disney+'s subscriber numbers.
It is worth noting that, while this is a huge problem for Disney+, the company is in a really great spot currently with its theatrical releases. Some of Disney's most recent movies have been huge hits at the box office. For example, Zootopia 2 made over $1.8 billion worldwide, The Devil Wears Prada 2 crossed the $600 million mark, and Toy Story 5 has already made more than $500 million without even being in theaters for two weeks.
That definitely offsets some of that poor streaming data, and it is worth noting that those recent theatrical releases have performed well on Disney+. Notably, those titles aren't considered original content and are categorized as catalog projects, which makes that 95% a little less worrisome. In other words, everyone who watched Zootopia 2 on Disney+ when it came to the platform (which was a lot of people) is part of that 95% instead of the 5%. That definitely helps skew the data.
Still, it is clear that Disney needs to take a step back and make some changes to its Disney+ content.
How Disney Can Fix Its Disney+ Dilemma
Disney definitely needs to do something to make its Disney+ content more popular. If it could figure out a way for subscribers to care about the original content, it could become an even bigger giant than it already is.
Ultimately, it all comes down to producing objectively good stories. If Disney polled its subscribers and asked them to list five original projects that they considered great, many would likely have a hard time doing so. Nothing aside from Andor really stands out as being a major success that also had excellent word of mouth.
In the social media era, word of mouth is more important than it has ever been. At least for a little while, Disney may want to cut back on how much Disney+ content it pumps out and make sure that the series they are releasing will land with subscribers, and, perhaps more importantly, drive new users to the platform.
