According to Variety and The Wall Street Journal, when Disney Plus’ ad-supported plan launches later this year, advertising will run for four minutes on movies or series that last an hour or less.
According to Variety, this would result in Disney showing less advertising per hour than some of its competitors. NBC’s Peacock broadcasts no more than five minutes of commercials each hour of programming, whereas HBO Max shows four minutes. Disney Plus’ anticipated ad count exceeds that of Disney-owned Hulu, which airs nine to twelve spots per hour.
In terms of the commercials’ content, the corporation is apparently treading carefully in order to retain its family-friendly reputation. Disney isn’t only removing commercials with mature themes, such as those about alcohol or politics; Variety says that it won’t even accept ads from competitors in the entertainment industry.
If a child’s profile is used, Disney aims to remove adverts from all shows. According to sources acquainted with the matter, Disney will eliminate adverts from shows aimed towards preschoolers, even if the user does not have a children’s profile.
Disney stated in March that it will introduce a cheaper, ad-supported version in the United States in late 2022, with plans to expand to other countries following year. There are no information on how much the cheaper version will cost – Disney Plus without advertisements presently costs $7.99 per month. Last quarter, Disney attracted 7.9 million new customers, bringing the total number of subscribers in the US and Canada to almost 44 million.
Netflix’s subscriber base has dwindled as Disney Plus’s continues to increase (despite still sitting at 74.58 million subscribers in the US and Canada). Last quarter, the streaming behemoth lost subscribers for the first time in more than a decade, and it has already created a few strategies to reclaim them. Netflix may launch an ad-supported tier this year, and it’s also working on a livestreaming option, similar to Disney Plus, according to a memo to workers.
Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings has mentioned cracking down on password sharing in order to cash in on streaming freeloaders (much to customers’ chagrin), which might happen at the same time as the company launches an ad-supported tier.