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Disney Plus Raising Subscriber Fees

by Emily Nagle

Beginning on Friday, March 26th, Disney+ will be raising their prices for the first time since the platform’s launch.

The mass media conglomerate’s streaming service – which celebrated reaching 100 million subscribers earlier this month – will be raising its monthly rate from $6.99 to $7.99 (for a full year, the price will increase from $69.99 to $79.99). The bundle containing Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN Plus will also be increasing in price by a dollar, with a new price tag of $13.99 a month.

Why the price increase? Disney has unveiled a variety of new content for the platform, from original series including WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier to films that can be watched at home as opposed to in theaters, such as Cruella, Black Widow, and more recently, Raya and the Last Dragon. In December is when the company unveiled their biggest content slate yet; they confirmed at their live-streamed Investor Day their plans to release 10 Marvel series, more than 10 Marvel films, 10 Star Wars series, and 15 other original series, all to be released over the next few years. More money will allow them to fulfill these goals, producing more content for their rapidly growing platform.

In only a year, Disney+ reached 73.7 million subscribers worldwide. That’s nearly twice the amount that Hulu has. The company predicts that by the end of 2024, the platform will have 260 million subscribers. The reason for its successful launch? Even after the price increase, it’s still much cheaper than its competitors – HBOMax goes for $14.99/month, while the monthly rate for Netflix’s standard plan is $13.99.

The price change is taking effect in other countries as well – in Canada this took place last month, as the price changed from $8.99 CAD to $11.99 CAD. Meanwhile in Europe, the service’s monthly rate will be increasing from £5.99 to £7.99.

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