Disney Dumps Netflix, Will Launch Own Streaming Service in 2019

Barely a year ago, Disney announced a major deal with Netflix to distribute all of its future movies on the company’s service. Today, that deal is (mostly) dead. During its earnings report today, the House of Mouse announced it will remove its films from Netflix in 2019 and launch its own streaming service later that same year.

To launch its new service, Disney paid $1.58 billion to acquire another 42-percent stake in BAMTech, a company that specializes in “direct-to-consumer streaming technology and marketing services, data analytics, and commerce management.” It plans to launch an ESPN-branded sports streaming service in 2018, with a general consumer service following the year later. This new service will be the exclusive home for movies like Toy Story 4 and Frozen 2: Freezer Burn (not an actual title), and the live-action version of The Lion King. The company adds:

Disney will also make a significant investment in an annual slate of original movies, TV shows, short-form content and other Disney-branded exclusives for the service. Additionally, the service will feature a vast collection of library content, including Disney and Pixar movies and Disney Channel, Disney Junior and Disney XD television programming.

The Streaming Dream is Dead

Back when services like Netflix and Hulu were new, pundits and cord cutters predicted an avalanche of back catalogs and killer new shows would make cable companies, with their sky-high bills and ever-increasing pricing, completely obsolete. Instead of paying over a hundred bucks a month for hundreds of channels you never watch, people would pony up a few dollars for streaming services. It was a nice fantasy, but it completely ignored one critical fact: Neither cable companies nor entertainment titans were going to swap billions of dollars in revenue from cable subscriptions for pennies on the dollar from streaming services.

Most of the animated catalog will be gone from Netflix come 2019. Gotta watch Mulan II before that happens.

The only thing surprising about Disney’s decision to launch its own service is that the company didn’t do so earlier. (The existing Disney Movies Anywhere only lets you buy movies directly.) Disney has always been a master at controlling its own film availability to stoke consumer demand. Titles are regularly pulled from sale for years, only to be put back on the market again, a practice referred to as the Disney Vault; movies in the Vault are not available unless you pirate them.

Given the studios huge back catalog and ongoing investment in TV and live-action film, this kind of service makes perfect sense. CBS thinks Star Trek fans will pay for its online service just to watch the new show (it’s wrong about that), and you can bet a lot of studios are watching to see if consumers will pay a per-studio or service fee for each individual company. We could be headed for a bright future of paying $8 to $15 each to a dozen different companies, provided you’re willing to go the legal route.

One final note on Disney: It’s not clear yet if this deal also covers future Marvel and Star Wars movies. We know Netflix will continue to make TV shows like Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, but what will happen to its film catalog is less clear.