Disney Plus has already placed rules to prevent subscribers from sharing their passwords but now from the recent announcements, we have an idea when it will start making users pay to share them.
In an interview on Thursday, the CEO of Bob Iger says the company plans on “launching our first real foray into password sharing” in June.
According to Iger, the rollout will start in “just few countries in a few markets” before expanding to all subscribers in September. Disney’s rules on cracking password sharing rules initially went into effect for new subscribers on January 25th and were rolled out to existing members on March 14th.
The initial communications to Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ customers will prompt password-borrowers to start their own subscriptions, the company has said previously. Later in 2024, account holders who want allow access to individuals outside their household will be able to add them for an additional fee.
This method of anti password sharing was initially started by Netflix streaming service. It began cracking down on Password sharing in 2023, as it began charging users an extra $7.99 per month to add an extra viewer outside their household.
The announcement comes over a week after Disney combined Disney +Hulu app in United States after Disney bought the remaining ownership stake of Hulu from Comcast last year. This move not only combines your watch history from both platforms if you have the Disney+ bundle, but consolidates the libraries of both streaming services into Disney+.
Its still unclear which countries will be first hit by Disney Plus’ s password clampdown. But if we follow the trend of2023,where Netflix account sharing crackdown was introduced then Canada, Spain and some Latin American nations would be the first places on the hit list.
During an interview in February, Disney’s chief financial officer, Hugh Johnston, confirmed that subscribers “suspected of improper sharing” will see a prompt to sign up for their own subscription this summer. Subscribers will also be able to add members outside their household for an “additional fee,” but Disney still hasn’t provided any details on how much this will cost.
“We feel great about the engagement of those Disney subs who are not getting Hulu who are now watching more programs that were on Hulu, including Shogun,” Iger tells CNBC. “We have to increase engagement. We need the technological tools to lower churn, create more stickiness. It’s things like recommendation engines, getting to know our customers better.”
As pointed out by my colleague David Pierce, Disney is also working to “unify identities so that whoever is connected on the Hulu app is also connected to Disney Plus and ESPN and to their cable box” — a vital tool for a password-sharing crackdown. Iger has higher aspirations and plans for the company’s streaming business, including a streaming-only version of ESPN, and says it will achieve profitability by the end of this fiscal year. Paid sharing will likely help further this goal.
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