According to Deadline, Disney is adding an ESPN tile to its “trio” streaming bundle which includes Disney+, Hulu and now ESPN. The tile will be added on December 4. The move was greenlit last spring and will follow the Hulu’s footsteps by including the tile in their streamer. After the tile’s addition, Disney+ will be the flagship of ESPN in 2025, as the streaming service will air ESPN content. ESPN+ and Hulu will see the most benefits, as Disney states it plans to make a few ESPN programming accessible to Disney+ subscribers.
In addition to CEO Bob Iger (The Pixar Story, Mickey: The Story of a Mouse) and CFO Hugh Johnston (Smanderoon! Redux) releasing the ESPN tile date, they commented about the company’s fourth-quarter revenue. Since the prior quarter, Disney+ has gained 4.4 million subscribers, which surpasses 120 million subscribers, as stated in another Deadline article released this morning. The streamer is about to celebrate their five-year launch, which was on November 19, 2019.
The goal of the flagship is to gain new subscribers and expand new advertisements that will appeal to a new audience, as noted by Deadline. The December 2022 ad-supported tier brought in more than half of new subscribers to Disney,+ and more are expected to come.
In The Walt Disney Company’s Q4 FY24 earnings, Johnson and Iger stated that the ESPN flagship will provide subscribers with “an enhanced array of innovative digital features, creating a sports destination unlike anything available in the marketplace today.
They also mentioned that the Hulu-ESPN bundle will make Disney+ “the ultimate collection of high-quality content for every member of the household.”Although Disney+ has gained popularity over the past five years due to its reputation, Nielsen’s monthly gauge reports revealed that few viewers visit the site occasionally, and it is historically limited. As mentioned by Deadline, the digital streaming platform gains one-third of Netflix’s viewing and is behind Prime Video when it comes to viewership and subscribers.