Social distancing is making Brits more excited for Disney+ launch this month

UK citizens are growing increasingly excited about the launch of Disney+ on 24 March, according to a new study conducted by market research company, GlobalWebIndex. As many Brits remain either quarantined or isolated due to the coronavirus, 14 per cent of consumers said they have already purchased a year subscription to the streaming service, or plan to at launch. GlobalWebIndex also found that compared to July 2019, the general interest in Disney+ by Brits has jumped by 23 per cent.

“Interestingly, 12 per cent of Brits admit that they have actually seen flagship TV show, The Mandalorian, a spin-off Star Wars series,” said Chase Buckle, trends manager at GlobalWebIndex. “But even piracy problems have been unable to stem the excitement around Disney+. Added to this, the recent global health situation will have many people – particularly families with kids who cannot attend school – considering a package which offers them all the family-friendly content to keep them entertained for lengthy stretches indoors.”

Customers are most excited about certain content including Pixar films (49 per cent) and Marvel tv shows and films (47 per cent), with less pointing out Star Wars (32 per cent) as a reason to subscribe. Additionally, the partnership between Sky and Disney+ seems to be playing a key role in Disney+ subscriptions. 18 per cent of Brits said they are Sky Go customers, which means they will have first access to Disney+.

“The recent partnership between Sky and Disney to offer Sky customers access to Disney+ content as part of their package is an interesting development,” said Buckle. “It could be a key moment in helping both Netflix and Disney+ retain a competitive share in users in the UK, whilst proving lucrative to Sky as the one stop shop for consumers streaming needs.”

The study found that 24 per cent of consumers aren’t sure if they will invest in a Disney+ subscription as an added streaming service. Only 7 per cent of consumers said they would cancel an existing streaming service membership to subscribe to Disney+, while 29 per cent of consumers said they’d be fine with keeping existing subscriptions and simply adding Disney+ to that monthly bill.

Chase concludes: “It’s time for the video on-demand industry to review the points of access for consumers. So far, it has been a case of another service, another price list. However, this model can only go on for so long. Looking for solutions to the rising expense, we found that just over a quarter of UK consumers are ready to see ads on the BBC to mitigate the cost of the TV licence and over a third (38 per cent) state that we can do without TV licences altogether. The rise of ‘Advertising Supported Video on Demand’ or AVOD is something for the industry to seriously consider, to ensure consumer costs remain low, whilst profitable for them.”