Disney Mulls Acquisitions As It Prepares To Launch Premium Streaming Service
The Walt Disney Corporation is expected to launch its highly-anticipated streaming service, known as "Disney Premium", later this year. The service will host film and television content from across Disney's vast collection of properties, throwing open the so-called "Disney Vault" and allowing their animated and live-action classics to be streamed any time, any place for the first time ever. However, some critics are decrying a lack of content on the service, and point to Disney's lack of meaningful acquisitions as a potential source of their skepticism. Disney hasn't made any major moves to acquire outside IPs since 2004, when it formally acquired Pixar (a company it had already had a major role in founding and assisting with the distribution of its films). Before that, Disney acquired the ABC television network and its family of content, including the cable channel ESPN, back in 1996, but since then, Disney hasn't had any significant acquisitions. Indeed, in recent years the company has been the target of acquisition rumors itself, from companies like Apple earlier in the decade, to 20th Century Fox, which at one point was being rumored to be in pursuit of a merger with Disney. A statement from an insider at Fox said that "though Fox considered making a bid to acquire Disney and its IPs, in the end the move was seen as being too risky, and that Fox didn't think it could effectively market Disney content and maintain its own separate image." The insider went on to state that "Fox couldn't imagine a world in which Disney and itself ever joined forces, according to one prominent executive in the company". Though Disney's fortunes have flagged at times during the 21st century, the company has seen a recent surge of popular content, including the hit Pixar film Sonic the Hedgehog 2, its own animated musical Written In The Stars, and a bevy of popular televised content, including the surging musical comedy She's Got It! and the hit animated show Goldilocks: The Series, which is expected to air its fourth and final season beginning later this year. Disney is expected to produce original content for its new streaming service, some of which will feature some of the company's more obscure IPs, including an animated show based on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, expected to take place in a "dark, parallel universe with plenty of twists and turns". Though Disney Premium is likely to feature very little in the way of content outside Disney's classic library, it's important to remember that the company has produced some of the most beloved films and characters of all time, and these classic films will likely prove highly attractive to millions of potential subscribers. Though Disney Premium will likely live or die on the strength of its original content, it should have a good rock on which to build its church.
-from a January 13, 2019 article on Tubehound
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