The numbers for this area don’t look great for Disney+.
One of former CEO Bob Chapek’s main focuses was streaming, particularly Disney+. To that end, Chapek poured a lot of time, energy, and resources into the platform to make it competitive with other streaming services that are now saturating the market. Despite this effort and huge popularity with fans and streamers, Disney+ is still struggling in one area in particular.
Disney+ leads Netflix in several areas. As of December 2022, Disney’s streaming service had surpassed the number of streaming subscribers that Netflix currently has by 15 million. This generally means that more people are watching or are able to watch Disney plus than the pioneering streaming service that Netflix offers, but the numbers don’t seem to reflect that.
According to a new report from Nielsen, covered by Variety, Disney+ trailed way behind Netflix when it came to several different categories. Chiefly overall streaming, streaming originals, and acquired streaming programs. In fact, the only area in which Disney came out on top was streaming movies, in which the top two slots were occupied by Encanto (2021) and Turning Red (2022), with content from the Disney streaming service occupying ten of the 15 slots.
So, what was the top content streamed in 2022? According to the report, viewers across the world watched Stranger Things more than anything they watched from Disney. When it came to overall streaming, Disney didn’t even place second, third, or fourth, with Encanto falling behind NCIS, Cocomelon, and Ozark all on Netflix.
Despite having dozens of original series on Disney+, the first series that shows up in any of the rankings has been the immensely popular children’s show Bluey. If these lists are to be believed, it shows a substantially disproportionate viewership regarding original series. Not one of the Disney+ original series released in 2022 made the any of the lists despite high ratings and high production value.
If the Walt Disney Company is to be successful with originals like Andor, Moon Knight, or The Mandalorian over Netflix and Amazon Prime Video something has to change. They’ve made a quality product a few times over now, and many have been critically acclaimed, garnering praise from critics and fans and nominations from award shows and film societies, but now they need to boost viewership.
How is this accomplished? There are countless things that the entertainment giant could do, but the test of time always proves if a new program like Disney+ will survive. If Disney can continue creating high-quality shows like The Mandalorian on a consistent basis, it will prove to the viewers and the market that the service is worth their time and their money.
