Disney+ Ad-Supported Plan to Limit Commercials to Four Minutes Per Hour

[SirAnthonyHopkins]

Tell us more about tv licenses in the UK and we can compare on equal terms.

?

The TV licence pays to keep the BBC an independent and non-commercial broadcaster. All other channels are ad-supported, or a combination of ads and subscriptions. Not sure what you're getting at.

I also really didn't mean my post to be a "UK telly is better than US" comment, the volume of ads over here on regular programming is still really high (I only watch sports really, where there are natural placements for ads and it definitely doesn't come to more than 15 minutes per hour). But 23 minutes per hour is genuinely crazy.

 

[tucupeis]

paying to watch ads doesnt sound like a plan to me

 

[SirAnthonyHopkins]

paying to watch ads doesnt sound like a plan to me

Isn't this what anyone who's ever taken out a plan from a cable or satellite TV operator has always done? You pay for the service and they have ads on them. No major difference here.

 

[RemedyRabbit]

Tell us more about tv licenses in the UK and we can compare on equal terms.

TV license only pays for BBC, which has no ads. Commercial TV stations on freeview are limited to 12 minutes of ads per hour.

 

[Deguello]

?

The TV licence pays to keep the BBC an independent and non-commercial broadcaster. All other channels are ad-supported, or a combination of ads and subscriptions. Not sure what you're getting at.

I also really didn't mean my post to be a "UK telly is better than US" comment, the volume of ads over here on regular programming is still really high (I only watch sports really, where there are natural placements for ads and it definitely doesn't come to more than 15 minutes per hour). But 23 minutes per hour is genuinely crazy.

You said it’s astonishing that people put up with that many ads. Others might think it’s astonishing to have to pay £159 per year to be able to watch live TV, even if it’s streamed. On a phone. That is genuinely crazy.

 

[cicalinarrot]

I am guessing the ad-supported tier will also remove the option to download content for offline playback? However, nothing beats those idiots at Netflix limiting HD / 4K to the premium plan in 2022

Not to mention the 4K bitrate is so lame, the perceived quality is worse than most 1080p content on other sites.

 

[Deguello]

TV license only pays for BBC, which has no ads. Commercial TV stations are limited to 12 minutes of ads per hour.

If someone in the UK wanted to stream a live football game on Amazon Prime, it would be illegal to do so without having paid for a TV license, right?

(Edit: One can’t even legally watch the ad-supported stations without having paid the £159 license, or anything live, even on a phone, if I understand it correctly.)

My point is that some people find things “genuinely crazy” while simultaneously operating in a situation that others find “genuinely crazy.”

 

[ELman]

The no ad version will save you money in the long run if you have young children.

 

[SalisburySam]

Aahhh, looks like it might be time to dust off the old TiVo units to skip ads again.

 

[tkaravou]

This should be pretty good - more choice on plans/tiers is welcome.

Except that they're increasing the price of non-ad supported tiers at the same time

 

[oldMac]

This is absolutely insane. I barely watch any broadcast telly but I'm pretty sure it's less than this in the UK. Astonishing that anyone puts up with this.

I don’t think this is true. lol

 

[CarAnalogy]

We really are just living the path of cable TV all over again. The exact same promises made, and slowly eroded. Now we're right back to bundles, with ads, and being pushed a ton of crap we don't want to get the little bit (relative to the enormous volume of crap) of content we want.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Tell me you don’t have kids without…

For almost everyone I know, Disney is the least likely to be binged and dumped.

Disney owns just about everything worth watching anymore. Remember they also own Hulu.

 

[AppleTO]

For context, viewers of traditional TV are usually exposed to between 18 and 23 minutes of ads per hour, according to data from Kantar.

That seems a little high. In North America, it’s generally 8 minutes per half hour. So half hour shows are around 22 minutes, and hour shows are 44 minutes.

 

[AppleTO]

We really are just living the path of cable TV all over again. The exact same promises made, and slowly eroded. Now we're right back to bundles, with ads, and being pushed a ton of crap we don't want to get the little bit (relative to the enormous volume of crap) of content we want.

It’s pretty sad when you think about it. The only difference is the delivery method, and the fact that each service is its own company (for the most part).

At least we aren’t just litteraly paying to watch ads… yet.

 

[Deguello]

Disney owns just about everything worth watching anymore. Remember they also own Hulu.

That’s fair. My point was that Disney+ has a lot of content that stays on replay for weeks and months (or even years) at a time in a way that most streaming services don’t.

 

[MacCheetah3]

Now if only there were a business, that I could get all my streaming services in one place. And they provided some sort of box to connect to my TV. And there could different packages and tiers I could choose. And they could bundle it with my telephone bill. That be amazing.

It’s hilarious watching streaming come full circle.

It’s pretty much TV on-demand.

Y-e-a-h… ? When the rumored affordable a la carte services didn’t even get off the ground, it was already evident. Bundling 100/150+ channels wasn’t a kindness to appeal to a wide audience. ? It was to be able to also profit from less captivating networks — kind of like Newegg bundles. ??

How long will the four minutes per hour last? There is only one direction ad time goes.

What amuses me as I watch this field mature is that we are heading back to where we started. For a brief time we escaped from ads thanks to DVRs. I encounter so few TV ads these days that when I do encounter them I find them to be an all out assault on my senses, besides being generally an insult to my intelligence. I’d rather watch nothing than ever suffer through ads again.

For me, for the most part, I am willing to endure ads if they are the payment method. However, as already stated:

Isn't this what anyone who's ever taken out a plan from a cable or satellite TV operator has always done? You pay for the service and they have ads on them. No major difference here.

 

[webkit]

paying to watch ads doesnt sound like a plan to me

It's more like you are being "paid" to watch ads. If ad-free Disney+ costs $7.99/month and an ad version is $4.99/month (TBD), you are being "paid" $3/month (via the subscription discount) to watch ads.

Most content over time has been a pay/ad hybrid model from print (newspapers and magazine) to cable/satellite television.

 

[xxray]

That’s actually not bad at all. Much better than Hulu who does like 15 minutes of ads per hour.

 

[webkit]

We really are just living the path of cable TV all over again. The exact same promises made, and slowly eroded. Now we're right back to bundles, with ads, and being pushed a ton of crap we don't want to get the little bit (relative to the enormous volume of crap) of content we want.

The ad-supported plan is an OPTION. People can still choose the ad-free plan if they want to.

As far as bundles go, like an ad-supported plan, it is offered as an OPTIONAL way for customers to save money on multiple streaming services if they want to.

Optional ad-supported and bundle plans are meant to give customers more choices, not take choices away.

 

[LV426]

This is absolutely insane. I barely watch any broadcast telly but I'm pretty sure it's less than this in the UK. Astonishing that anyone puts up with this.

In the "old days", UK TV ad breaks tended to be around 2 minutes each. Now, it's more like 4 minutes, so I can easily imagine 20 minutes of ads in an hour happening.

They are pretty annoying and they don't work on me. I can confidently say that no TV ad has ever persuaded me to go out and buy something.

Other things that I find intensely annoying are:

• American imports like, say, Medical Detectives. Only half an hour long, but there will be at least four blackout sections where adverts would have appeared for the Native American audience. Ads may be annoying in the UK, but the Americans must be totally bombarded with them. They get pruned out to a degree once they've crossed the Atlantic.
• Programmes that are thin on content and repeatedly highlight "Coming up..." or "Recap..." to pad out the run time, and remind goldfish what happened before the commercial break! They drive me mad.

 

[LV426]

You said it’s astonishing that people put up with that many ads. Others might think it’s astonishing to have to pay £159 per year to be able to watch live TV, even if it’s streamed. On a phone. That is genuinely crazy.

Moat people I know think that £3 a week is exceptionally good value to keep the BBC funded. It has some of the best TV content in the world, and actually makes a ton of money by licensing certain shows worldwide. That money gets funnelled back into production rather than shareholders' pockets.

The only reason BBC content remains such high quality is through its very high volume of subscribers which, as you suggest, is essentially compulsory for viewing in the UK.

Personally, I would not wish to see BBC funding changed. For the price of a cup of coffee each month, we get exceptional content and, of course, iPlayer. The UK government has it in mind to scrap the license fee, which I believe would be a grave mistake.

 

[neliason]

The ad-supported plan is an OPTION. People can still choose the ad-free plan if they want to.

As far as bundles go, like an ad-supported plan, it is offered as an OPTIONAL way for customers to save money on multiple streaming services if they want to.

Optional ad-supported and bundle plans are meant to give customers more choices, not take choices away.

I wish it were so benevolent. I’m afraid the last thing media executives want to do is give people more choices. They are simply trying to maximize revenue. They want to make money off of the subscription and the ad revenue. Length of ad time will slowly increase each year. They’ll hope we won’t notice, and we won’t.

In the future, if they keep ad free subscriptions, they will price them like Apple prices memory upgrades. Ad free will be an luxury tier that most people won’t want to or can’t pay for.

 

[philipglamb]

Disney is launching a cheaper, ad-supported version of its Disney+ streaming service later this year, and reports this week revealed how the company plans to run fewer ads on the cheaper plan than some rival streamers.

Disney says it intends to run ads for four minutes on movies and shows that last an hour or less, according to Variety and The Wall Street Journal.

That's the same as HBO Max, less than NBC's Peacock, which runs no more than five minutes of ads every hour, and less than Disney's own Hulu, which runs anywhere between nine and 12 minutes for every hour of content. For context, viewers of traditional TV are usually exposed to between 18 and 23 minutes of ads per hour, according to data from Kantar.

Disney also confirmed to TechCrunch that preschool programming will not have any commercials whatsoever. In other words, preschool kids who use their own profile to watch Disney+ on the cheaper plan won't see any ads.

Disney has yet to reveal the price of the ad-supported plan, which is set to debut in the U.S. in late 2022, but Disney executives suggested during the company's recent earnings call that once the cheaper plan launches there will likely be a price increase to the existing ad-free plan, which is currently $7.99 a month.

Netflix is planning to introduce a new ad-supported tier in the final three months of the year, with the plan aimed at attracting new subscribers who find the current pricing unaffordable. Netflix has long resisted implementing an ad-supported tier and has said multiple times in the past that the streaming service would never show ads, but it is hemorrhaging subscribers.

Disney in June 2021 also said that it had no plans to introduce a cheaper ad-supported tier anytime soon because it was satisfied with its paid subscriber model, but then the company changed its tune in March.

Other entertainment companies like Discovery, NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia, and Paramount have launched ad-supported subscription tiers to offer content at multiple price points. When Disney+ launches its ad-supported tier, it will make Apple TV+ one of the only services not to offer a cheaper streaming option.

Right now, ‌Apple TV+‌ is priced competitively even with ad-based services at $4.99 per month, but Apple does not have the wealth of content that other streaming services are able to offer.

Article Link: Disney+ Ad-Supported Plan to Limit Commercials to Four Minutes Per Hour

$5.99 Ads
$9.99 Ad Free
??

 

[oneMadRssn]

How long will the four minutes per hour last? There is only one direction ad time goes.

What amuses me as I watch this field mature is that we are heading back to where we started. For a brief time we escaped from ads thanks to DVRs. I encounter so few TV ads these days that when I do encounter them I find them to be an all out assault on my senses, besides being generally an insult to my intelligence. I’d rather watch nothing than ever suffer through ads again.

I agree. I realize this is elitist, but I am at a point where I am willing to pay to not have ads ever again. And if if the ad-free price isn't reasonable, then I sail the high seas.