Disney plans to match Netflix in its spending on streaming

DISNEY’S THEME parks may be closed and its cruise ships docked, but the entertainment giant’s Disney+ streaming service has been one of the great success stories of the year of lockdown. Launched 13 months ago with a target of reaching 60m-90m subscribers by 2024, it had hit that mark by this summer, as self-isolating audiences happily shelled out $6.99 a month for access to the deep back-catalogue of Hollywood’s biggest studio.Wall Street lapped it up. Despite a net loss of $710m in the three months to September, mainly owing to those closed theme parks and docked cruise ships, the growth of Disney+ propelled the company’s share price back to where it had been before the pandemic. If the stockmarket had any lingering doubts, it was over the emptiness of Disney’s pipeline of new shows. Aside from “The Mandalorian”, a “Star Wars” spin-off, and “Hamilton”, a Broadway musical, the service has had few original hits, relying heavily on the Disney archives. The company allocated only about $2bn for fresh Disney+ content this year. Netflix, the world’s biggest streamer, with 195m subscribers, earmarked $17bn.