In a way it makes sense for Disney not to allow Netflix ads to run on its streaming service, but as Ryan Scott of MovieWeb shows it does seem kind if petty since Netflix managed to give Disney another platform to showcase a lot of its content for years. The reason it makes sense is that Netflix doesn’t run ads, and as such Disney has no real motivation to stay partnered with the streaming giant for this purpose, but remain allied with other streaming services that will run its ads. What this seems like is an attempt by Disney to stake its entrance into the streaming wars in a big way by making a profound statement in the form of breaking with a streaming giant that has been pretty good to the Mouse House throughout the years. It’s definitely a sign of something when a big company like Disney seems to exclude another company that’s been helping them out so much, but the fun part of this is that if Disney thinks that they struck a major blow against Netflix, such as one might have thought when it was decided that Disney would take all of its content back, then the Mouse House might need to back up and reflect on that action for a moment.
Netflix doesn’t really need the added help since they’ve been doing just fine for years now as they’ve continued to grow and build, becoming a streaming giant throughout the last couple decades. Andy Meek of BGR seems to think that the streaming giant won’t be shaking in their boots just yet. From the moment people started learning more and more about the service they started signing up, finding new movies and shows along with older ones that they hadn’t seen in a long time offered where they could get to them easily and, even better, without ads. The idea of being able to watch the shows or movies that you like commercial-free is something that a lot of people loved since Hulu didn’t do this and neither did regular TV. It used to be if you wanted to watch something without commercials that you’d have to buy or rent a movie or own the box set of an entire show. With Netflix you can pick and choose what you want to watch and never see a single commercial, and this is part of the draw that people have loved throughout the years since while commercials can be great and they do rake in a great amount of money, they’re also kind of tiresome after a while, especially when networks want to push as many as they can between moments in a show so as to take advantage of their earning power.
The whole thing about streaming is that people came to expect that it wouldn’t have the tedious and sometimes bothersome commercials that regular TV had. The allure of such a thing was great since it meant one could watch their favorite shows and movies from end to end without having to endure annoying commercials featuring products we either didn’t need or didn’t want. It’s true that advertising is needed to continually generate revenue and to push new ideas and products that people might want, but when there are three to five commercials all lasting thirty to sixty second or more in a row it becomes kind of tiresome when they’re forced in between the moments of a favored program.
Disney+ is no doubt looking to come out as one of the biggest competitors in the streaming wars as Henry Fernandez of Fox Business would agree with, and there’s no doubt that, like any of the others, they want to be at the top of the heap. In fact it’s hard to believe that this isn’t the end goal since anything Disney attempts it seems to want to dominate in a big way no matter what happens. This time around however it seems as though they might be taking on the kind of fight that they won’t be winning so easily, if at all, since the streaming game is something that Netflix has been doing at lot longer and knows how to work. Taking the Disney content from Netflix won’t do much it would seem since Netflix has enough material and enough that might be on deck or being thought up in order to keep up. Disney is going to be one heavy competitor with the different shows and wealth of movies they feature, but given that Disney is more family-friendly and has a lot of movies that people have seen at least once or more, it still feels as though Netflix is going to do just fine since they’re offering so much new material. In truth it might be that more people will hold onto their Netflix service and subscribe to Disney+ at the same time since the service really isn’t that expensive. At this point and time Disney ‘laying down the hammer’ on Netflix ads doesn’t really seem like a big deal. Game on.
