Disney+ Follow Netflix to Launch Ad-Supported UK Plan and Hikes Prices
Internet video streaming firm Disney+ appears to have taken a leaf out of Netflix’s book by today announcing the launch of its new ad-supported subscription plan (aka – “Standard with Ads“) for the United Kingdom, which will become available from 1st November 2023 and costs several £ pounds less than their regular plan.
Under the wider changes, Disney+ will soon offer three subscription plans, starting with Standard and Premium, which will also be increasing in price. The Standard plan now costs £7.99 per month (£79.90 annually), supports Full HD (1080p) video resolution, 2 concurrent streams, downloads and 5.1 audio & stereo sound.
By comparison, the Premium plan will cost £10.99 per month (£109.90 annually) and adds 4K HDR video support (HDR10 and Expanded Aspect Ratio with IMAX Enhanced where supported), 4 concurrent streams and Dolby Atmos audio.
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Finally, the new Standard with Ads plan will cost just £4.99 per month (catch – there’s no cheaper annual option) and is otherwise similar to the normal ‘Standard’ plan, except you don’t get access to download shows for offline viewing and can expect to see adverts at intervals during your content viewing.
Jan Koeppen, President of The Walt Disney Company EMEA, said:
“The introduction of the ad-supported plan marks the next evolution for Disney+ in the UK, as we provide greater choice for our customers and our world-class advertising partners alike. Disney+ continues to set itself apart in today’s streaming landscape, offering unrivalled value, genre-defining TV series and blockbuster movies set within a simple and seamless experience.”
Existing customers will remain on their current subscription, which will be renamed Disney+ Premium and will have the option to switch to the Standard Plan or Standard with Ads Plan. Existing customers who choose not to switch will be billed the new price starting from their next billing cycle on or after 6th December 2023.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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“ At present, Disney+ offers just two subscription plans – Standard and Premium.”
Am I missing something? Because I’m only seeing a single plan with monthly and annual.
Also apparently they’re going to pull a Netflix style crackdown, so time to work on workarounds for the parents.
Looks like you’re right, and the article has been updated.
Yay for corporate greed. AFAICT the upcoming (HD? SD?) with ads plan costs the same as the 4k ad-free plan did back at launch. With the latest price rise, you have to downgrade from 4k to HD to avoid getting shafted.
The (redacted) studios aren’t even spending money on new content right now. There’s the writers strike, because they’re not paying their writers properly.
@Iain the problem with the ‘writers strike’ is no one cares much when they are rubbing shoulders with a lot of multimillionaire actors and actresses virtue signalling with them, plus considering the drivel they write I don’t think they have much sympathy from the public either. They were actually requesting large financial donations from the public to help fund their lifestyles whilst they continue to strike.
No, their fellow actors can help fund them if they want to strike, the whole industry has become quite the joke these days, and gaming has far surpassed it as a preferred leisure time activity.
Their is still some good content, but not from Hollywood these days.
Patrick Bet David from Valuetainment has put out a great video explaining the Hollywood strikes
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bkq-W4wueA0
These activists have dug themselves into a big hole with nothing to show for
D+ is on a downfall losing almost 5million customers in Q2 and this being the second quarter of decline with more to come as people tune in for the classics and ignore their new woke content
Go woke, Go broke.
It isn’t “woke content”, Disney+’s original content is pretty similar in terms of “wokeness” as to when it launched. And “woke” just means to be aware of societal issues, particularly with race.
Major change is the loss of Indian cricket which led to a huge subscriber loss over in India.
The slow current subscriber loss is burnout from Marvel and Star Wars, the former particularly after Infinity War. Its an issue when a lot of the Disney+ original content is based on those two franchises.
Disney has objectively become more woke with their content, inserting more and more of the woke religion into their content
And it goes far beyond just race swapping characters like black Little Mermaid or brown Snow White, they are literally pushing the trans stuff onto little kids and unsuspecting parents.
They not only deserve the boycott, they should go to jail for leading kids down this dark path of ruining their own lives
House of Mouse seems to be in choppy waters at the minute. Several big budget films have bombed this year including Indiana Jones and the Dial of Dysentery. Another company that seems to have become obsessed with political correctness losing its way in the process.
The new woke Indiana Jones needed to make 1 billion just to break even but failed to even reach half the target. It is a half a billion dollar flop
Their saving grace which was the park revenue is collapsing
They are now selling some of their brands to cover for their huge losses
Nature is healing
What the hell does ‘woke’ even mean, why is it being used a negative it’s very annoying when in reality its being hijack to cover up discrimination
The only discrimination here is against family values and good clean entertainment
Glad this company is burning down
Sadly they keep delaying Captain Marvel 2. Hopefully it will be as good to make fun of as Shehulk
@Damo according to Merriam-Webster woke mean to be aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice). Those using “woke” in a negative way are just trying to hide their racism/homophobia/sexism.
As for Disney their issues with film releases is because they’ve trained audiences that it will be on Disney+ shortly afterwards. Why bother with the expense of taking the kids to the cinema when you can watch it at home on Disney+ in 6 weeks.
I would suggest people join Club Lloyds to get Disney+ as a free perk. You deposit £2000 every month (your don’t need to keep it, just rotate it between your banks through standing orders). Bit of work but worthwhile.
Disneys franchise stuff is dross but Star is quite good, the Bear is a great watch
Was told you need tv license to watch Netflix, Disney+, Discoveryplus, Nowtv or Skygo. Another Britain rip off
Your source was half right, this is taken from tvlicensing’s website:
“A TV Licence covers you to:
Watch or record TV on any channel on any TV service (like Sky, Virgin Media and Freeview).
Watch live on streaming services (like ITVX, All 4, YouTube and Amazon Prime Video).
Use BBC iPlayer*
This applies to any device, including a TV, computer, laptop, phone, tablet, games console or digital box.
If you’re not watching, streaming or recording TV in any of the above ways –
or your property is empty – please let us know.
*A licence is not needed to watch S4C programmes on demand.”
Basically, for VoD from non-iPlayer sources, you’re fine.
Raise it and get it refunded. May only be pro-rata’d but its refundable.
I actually just share a sub from a family member, don’t pay for it, purely due to the obscene woke path Disney are enshrined on taking as I did pay for it monthly for a couple of years I think. I haven’t watched any if their new stuff as I find it boring and dull, I watched the new Guardians Of The Galaxy the other day and it is just a dull film looking for an excuse to exist. First one was much better and why I bought it.
Nope if I lose access to Disney I really won’t care, the handful of films I like I’ll buy and own. It’s never ending stream of carbon copy Marvel content is boring and merges into one blur, thank God they don’t make Spider-Man.
For me Prime and Netflix are the ones to keep, as they have some good old and new content.
I agree on the Marvel stuff, ever since after Endgame it’s lost direction and it struggles to justify its own existence. Sony’s Spiderman films are really what Marvel should be – on a side note the first Spiderverse film is excellent and is on Netflix.
Disney’s path isn’t “woke”, its to aquire companies and milk their IPs with reboots and sequels. Marvel did excellently for a while as Disney left it to its own autonomy while Bob Iger (Disney CEO) played around with Lucasfilm. Their recent films aren’t bad because they are “woke”, they are just bad or mediocre films.
Looks like we’ll be opting for un-restrictive pirating again soon.
They sowed the seeds of their own decline with forgetting what made the company what it is. Gone is original compelling and entertaining storytelling. Instead it’s the fake diversity nonsense. The parks have also declined in what they offer for the price they’re charging. Universal Parks from what I understand are doing better.
The CEO is a nutcase who wrecked the golden brand of Star Wars (probably acquired to prevent it from competing with Disney owned Marvel). Marvel itself lacks coherence after Endgame. They have only themselves to blame. Mindless action, identity politics, rehashes and fake sequels (leeching off pre-established franchises just for the sake of it rather than telling a story) is not going to gain custom.
Agreed with above regarding Sony’s Spiderman films from the past. Most of the benefits of Disney+ would be to access OLD content from the Studios that the Disney company managed to buy. And National Geographic etc. They killed the goose that would lay the golden egg by buying George Lucas’ storyline for his intended sequels in his saga and then not making them. Instead they made an awful set of films about random characters that are not what the saga’s creator ever intended as the story whilst simultaneously destroying the entire premise of what came before. The only saving grace is that the Andor series was brilliant and somehow that unit within Lucasfilm (which also made Rogue One) seems to actually care about story and quality production. That’s only getting one more season. The rest of the production work on various shows and “new films” appears to be just mindless nonsense focused on the Disney sequel era. They are even doubling down on this mania with yet more films about their Disney sequel characters. A franchise that was a powerhouse before with books (ironically a treasure trove of actual good potential TV shows) and video games and a timeless piece of cinema reduced to what it is today.
The notion that any of these films made money (some didn’t) also doesn’t justify this farce given audience box office revenue would include those who didn’t like the movies and doesn’t measure up when compared with past films of a bygone era when accounting for inflation. They just don’t seem to get it with the franchises they bought out, that all of them were based on STORY by good writers and people who cared about story. Not on movies/TV shows designed by committees who don’t even care about the franchises they’ve somehow been appointed to direct.
Committees of fools wondering why fewer and fewer people don’t buy their content.
Waste of money tv subscriptions. When you can just pirate everything for free screw corporate greed.