‘Cancel Disney Plus’ Trends as Price Hike Reveals Growing Dissatisfaction
By Movieguide® Contributor
During its Q3 fiscal report, Disney announced it would raise the price of Disney+ later this year, a decision that has caused many consumers to reach a breaking point with the service.
The media giant announced that Disney+’s cheapest ad-free plan would jump from $10.99 to $13.99 a month. This is the second price hike in less than a year, causing subscriptions to the platform to rise by a combined 75%.
While announcing the change, Disney’s CEO Bob Iger shared insight on the previous price increase.
“We took a pretty significant price increase at Disney+ sometime in late 2022, and we really didn’t see a significant churn or loss of subs because of that, which was actually really heartening,” Iger said.
If the company was hoping for a similar response to their newest change, they didn’t get it. After the announcement, “Cancel Disney Plus” was trending across social media.
“With the #DisneyPlus scheduled increase, I decided to cancel my subscription. I rarely use it anymore, but cannot justify paying any more for something I don’t use,” one person posted.
“I hate to say it but I think I’m gonna cancel Disney plus, I haven’t watched anything on it besides nat geo docuseries for the last 3 months,” another person said.
The backlash from the price hike highlights a bigger issue within Disney—the inability to capture an audience. Many people are canceling their subscriptions not necessarily because of the price but because of the content.
It has been years since Disney found real success with a movie release, meaning there has been no box-office success to drum up business for the service. Furthermore, the Disney+ original shows are often dull takes, adding to overdone franchises, such as Marvel and Star Wars.
Struggles across the board have left Disney’s future unclear. A once untouchable giant in the entertainment industry, the company has struggled to adapt to the streaming age, and its insistence on pushing a liberal agenda, particularly in its animated movies targeted at children, has left it unable to capture an audience.
The mass cancelation of Disney+ is yet another rung on a ladder of failure that has brought the company to its current troubled state.
Movieguide® previously reported:
Disney’s streaming business lost $512 million during Q3 as the company’s high spending continued. Despite this high loss, the profitability actually saw improvement from last year when it had lost more than $1 billion over Q3.
Disney+’s subscriber count fell to 146.1 million subscribers over the most recent quarter, posting a 7.4% decline – worse than Wall Street had predicted. Much of this loss came from subscribers in India after Disney lost the rights to Indian Premiere League cricket matches.
To help combat the struggles of its streaming services, Disney announced they will increase the price of Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. Disney+ will rise from $10.99 to $13.99 a month, Hulu will rise to $17.99 from $14.99 a month and ESPN+ will go from $9.99 to $10.99 a month. These price changes will go into effect in October.
Iger also announced that the company will follow Netflix’s path and start to crack down on password sharing.
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