DISNEY HAS ANNOUNCED that the monthly subscription fee for its streaming service will rise for new and existing customers in November and December respectively.
The service, which currently costs €8.99 per month will rise to €10.99 for new customers on 1 November.
Current subscribers won’t be see the change in their bill until after 6 December.
Disney also announced price increases across Europe and in the US, as well as launching an ad-supported subscription option for the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
The subscription, which has already been launched in the US, will allow UK customers to pay £4.99 per month in exchange for being shown around four minutes of ads per hour and without the granting them the option of downloading content.
This move follows fellow streaming giant Netflix’s decision to launch ad-supported tiers in 11 countries last November.
Professor Patrick Brereton, a senior lecturer in Dublin City University with a specialism in New Media, told The Journal that streaming services are beginning to enter a max of collecting more profits.
“Noone decides to delete these services over an extra few euro a month because they don’t want to feel like they’re losing out on the content they’re used to,” he said.
“Most people don’t even notice the difference, Netflix put up one of their prices a few years ago and people only see a difference of a few euro but when you’re subscribed for years it adds up.”
Research by Pure Telecom, a broadband and telecoms provider, found that Irish households spend €1.3 billion a year on streaming services and are subscribed to an average of 2.4 video streaming services each.
28% of those surveyed would be willing to watch ads on their chosen service, but only if it meant they could get the content for free.
Brereton continued that once a streaming service has built enough subscribers over several years by allowing them access to good content for a relatively low price, it will raise that price without fear of losing many customers.
Disney+ offers subscribers a discount of two months if customers subscribe on an annual basis, meaning that a year of the service at its current €8.99 price costs €89.99.
Subscribers will be paying an additional €20 per year once the price increase takes effect.
“RTÉ are rightly getting a lot of stick about how they spend the license fee but when you see how much a year of streaming costs it’s not that different, and a lot of people will be subscribed to multiple services at once,” Brereton said.
“If the license fee was payable monthly it would be a whole different kettle of fish.”
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