All eyes on Disney+ as streaming landscape prepares for shakeup

There's little doubt the Walt Disney Company's launch of Disney+ in Australia this week will shake up Australia's streaming video landscape. The only question is how seismic it will be.

Disney+  broke records in the US by signing up 10 million people within 24 hours after launch last week. The US is a different and much bigger market than Australia and the strong opening result was probably influenced by a bundle offering US consumers access to the new service as well as Disney's majority owned sports network, ESPN+.

ESPN is not dominant in sport in Australia as it is in the US, and there is no sign such a bundle will be offered here either. But don't be surprised if the well-known Disney still attracts a large number of sign-ups on Tuesday.

The Disney+ landing page.Credit: Disney

This likelihood raises the question of  how much of a threat the new service will pose to existing services like Netflix and rival local Stan in a market that is beginning to look saturated.

Stan's parent company Nine Entertainment Co is also the owner of this masthead.

For Stan, the first challenge for Stan will be to withstand the loss of Disney's popular content from its own service. Stan had record sign ups over the summer period last year after getting access to Disney movies and launching new Australian original series Bloom.

While the 2019 financial year was overall a loss for Stan, the service has been profitable on an earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation and cash flow basis for every month since March.

This is good news for shareholders but after continuous speculation about the potential of a more significant agreement between the Australian service and Disney it is also an anti-climax.

Nine chief executive Hugh Marks told shareholders at the broadcaster's annual general meeting last week that Disney was focused on launching their service with "clean air, as they should" and that there was no prospect of a deal any time soon.

Another potential tie-up with Stan could've been with Disney's Hulu, but Marks watered down this speculation saying much of the content on that service was already being acquired, including through MGM and a recent deal with Paramount.

"Disney+ is a bit of a different product. Very family-focused ... Stan certainly we tend to be broad appeal, families, men, women, older people, younger people, Stan has a range of content that appeals to different audiences so it's a bit of a different proposition".

This may be so, but Nine's executives would be right to be wary of yet another disrupter in a growing crowd of options like 10 All Access, Kayo Sports, Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video.

Deloitte's Media Consumer Survey 2019 found viewers were already confused about what content could be found on each streaming service and there is still no consensus about how many subscriptions households will be willing or able to afford.