All right, 90 days later.
Now it's time for an update on Disney+.
The hype last year was real and it was big.
And when it finally came out on November 12th,
and we were all finally introduced to Baby Yoda.
(TV static)
(Baby Yoda slurping)
So cute.
The world let out a collective sigh of relief.
Ahhh finally, I can get an IV drip
of Disney straight into my veins.
Well, now we're 90 days into it, like I said.
This new era of good feelings.
And the honeymoon, the doe-eyed,
rose-colored glasses phase is coming to a close.
And now we can look at Disney+
with a little more critical eye.
So how's it holding up?
Well pretty freaking well, actually.
Now I'm not going to review Disney+ today,
because, well, it hasn't really changed much
in its first three months.
And you can still check out
the original review that we did right there.
So yeah, they had some technical issues on day one.
But, honestly, that's probably just because
of how many people signed up for it on day one.
That was about ten million people.
Things have looked better for the app since then.
So tech wise, things should be smooth sailing
from here on out.
Today, instead, what we're gonna do is
have a look at where Disney+ is at
with its subscriber count.
How it's fitting into the streaming landscape generally,
and whether it's keeping the promise it made
to be the must have streaming service on the block.
So let's dive in.
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So, let's talk about Disney+.
Analysts were expecting Disney+
to hit 20 million subscribers by the end of 2019.
Now I've been saying for a while
that all those analysts, including Disney's own,
have been low balling those subscriber estimates big time.
And, as always,
(up tempo rock music)
I was right.
Look, I'm not sorry about it.
28.6 million subscribers in its first three months.
That's what Disney+ announced last week.
So by the time this video gets out to you,
let's just call it 29 million subscribers.
So how does that do compared to its competitors?
Well, they've got a ways to go still
to catch Netflix, which ended 2019
with more than 167 million subscribers.
So, yeah, like I said, they've got a ways to go.
On the other end of the spectrum,
they're actually doing really well
compared to some other pretty popular services.
HBO Now, for instance, has eight million subscribers.
Another competitor would bee AppleTV+,
and I guess they kinda go in the same sentence,
because they came out around the same time.
Although they are very different streaming services.
But AppleTV+, which, I'm on record at saying,
has some great shows.
They won't even report their numbers for that service.
So that could be nothing
or it could be an indication that numbers there are weak.
So Disney, they are reporting those numbers,
and we know that they are doing really well.
And Disney expects massive growth driven
through their international subscribers coming up.
So it'll be released in the UK
and much of Europe on March 24th
and to some other European and Latin American
countries later in 2020 and 2021.
So, yeah, they'll pick up some
pretty major subscriber counts just by doing that.
But they also expect a bump this fall
when they release new Marvel and Lucasfilm shows.
So we've got coming up in August,
the Falcon and the Winter Soldier,
WandaVision comes up in December.
We're getting a new Mandalorian season in October,
and then there's the Obi-Wan Kenobi show,
which actually has been put on hold for now
because the script, the script written
by the screenwriters behind Drive
and the Mandalorian, didn't meet the exacting standards
of (clears throat) Kathleen Kennedy.
- [Dart Vader] I find your lack of faith disturbing. -
But that kind of gets us to what I see
as the thing holding Disney+ back.
Wait, what, they got almost 30 million subscribers
in three months and I'm saying that they're held back?
Sort of, yeah.
This is thing I've been talking about
for a little while now.
They need to concentrate on their original content.
They've got a lot of vault content, and that's great.
They opened up the vault and here we are
with all these subscribers.
But if we wanna talk about
the state of Disney+ currently,
that actually gets us to the thing to take note of,
the lack of compelling original content.
Yes, I said it.
It's not that there's none there.
But besides The Mandalorian,
is there anything that's really gotten people talking?
I mean, the Jeff Goldblum thing got some chatter
for a few days at the beginning,
but that died down pretty quickly.
And other than that, not much.
It'll all more about what's coming up later.
So all this chatter, this talk of the chatter,
it will change as we move through 2020 and into 2021.
And I'm really looking forward to it.
I've already mentioned Falcon and the Winter Soldier,
WandaVision, Mandalorian season two,
and then in the next 18 months, give or take,
we've already got, or will get,
Loki, Hawkeye, Marvel's What If,
Moon Knight, She-Hulk, believe it or not.
Ms. Marvel, Kenobi, you know fingers crossed.
The Cassian Andor Variety Hour,
or whatever that's gonna be called,
Muppets Now; Diary of a Female President
and many more titles.
Now, look, the vault is the vault, like I said.
And if you were really excited to finally get access
to Johnny Tsunami, you already signed up.
- Say the word. -
- See you at the bottom, loser. -
But if they want to pick up more subscribers,
they really wanna catch up to Netflix,
yeah they're gonna have to get
into this arm's race for original content.
And luckily it is a snowball effect,
just like what Netflix is going for.
So with all these original shows,
you may not care about most of them,
most of those original shows that I talked about,
but you will care about some of them.
So hopefully for Disney's sake
it's enough to keep you around
for season two of whatever
or the show that's coming up next month.
You know, maybe they'll dangle Kenobi
in front of us for years.
- I have a bad feeling about this. -
So bottom line here.
Has Disney kept up its end of the bargain
with Disney+ in its first 90 days?
Well, just based on the 50 million Elvis
fans can't be wrong argument,
we'd have to say yeah they have.
If they weren't, they wouldn't
be exceeding their subscriber count projections.
But if Disney+ wants to continue
to exceed those expectations,
it doesn't have any more vaults to throw open.
So it is gonna have to count on
the new, original content to do that.
So far so good.
The Mandalorian is great,
but we'll have to see a lot more
Mandalorian-level, quality stuff
in the not too distant future
to keep the momentum that they have going.
So what are you most excited for
on Disney's upcoming slate?
Is it Marvel stuff, Star Wars stuff,
is it the new Lizzie McGuire reboot? Be honest.
Hit the comments, let me know.
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