For Disney, it’s all about ‘quality over quantity’ with Disney+

Of course, since Disney’s announcement in 2017 that it would launch its own streaming service, Disney+ was immediately billed as a Netflix rival — which is understandable considering how dominant Netflix has been in that business over the past few years. But Paull sees it differently. “I don’t really think about it in that way,” he said about Disney+ being a Netflix rival. “If we create and we bring quality programming, there’s room for a multitude of players in this space, just like in the traditional [TV] ecosystem there was room for a whole bunch of different networks.” Instead, Paull added, “when we’re thinking about this product, this experience and the programming, we’re thinking about the end consumer.”

One of the biggest challenges in launching Disney+, Paull said, has been figuring out “the complexity of a global service.” On November 12th, Disney+ will be available in the US, Canada and the Netherlands, followed by Australia and New Zealand on November 19th. That will be the start of Disney’s rollout plans for its streaming service, which the company expects to be live in “most major global markets” within the first two years of its launch. “There’s a lot of complexity under the hood,” he said, pointing to how difficult it can be to build a product “that can scale, that can support a broad array of [devices]” and that can “take on massive concurrent streaming with a breadth of programming.”

In Europe, for example, Paull said Disney has to understand local laws that Disney+ needs to comply with, like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. GDPR may be the reason Disney+ hasn’t shared any details yet on when it will arrive in the UK, which has the potential to be a major market for the company. Paull said the Disney+ team has also been learning a lot from ESPN+, the standalone sports streaming service it launched in 2018, as well as the majority acquisition of BAMTech in 2017. (BAMTech is the startup behind the video-streaming tech powering services including Hulu, Hulu with Live TV, ESPN+ and, now, Disney+.)

“As an organization, we’ve learned a lot from that experience [ESPN+],” said Paull, “in terms of bringing product to market, marketing that product, acquiring subscribers, keeping them engaged and we will learn from all of those lessons.” With BAMTech, on the other hand, he said Disney was able to have a “strong and deep base knowledge of building, marketing and operating direct-to-consumer services,” which has laid the foundation for Disney+. “We’re taking all of the experience we’ve had over the years, whether it’s the streaming experience, getting people to sign up or the learnings about creating an elegant [service].”

Paull said that, ultimately, the key is to offer people a streaming service that makes it easy for them to watch the shows and movies they love most. The Disney+ experience, he said, should be seamless whether you’re watching on your iPhone, Android phone, Apple TV or Xbox One. “We want to make sure that the product doesn’t get in the way of the content,” Paull said. “We want to delight consumers with the product. But, really, in the end the product is the content.”

Images: Angela Papuga/Getty Images (Disney+ stage at D23 Expo)

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.