The mass boycott of Disney, with so many us canceling our Disney+, Hulu and ESPN subscriptions, was surely instrumental in convincing Disney to reinstate Jimmy Kimmel Live. Disney lost billions in stock value practically overnight. Now we have to figure out how to stick it to Sinclair and Nexstar, but I digress. It turns out that there was another reason for Disney to protect free speech/their bottom line: they had planned a price raise for most of their streaming platforms, which they just announced yesterday. Here’s more, from CNBC:
Disney on Tuesday unveiled price increases for its streaming subscription packages beginning Oct. 21.
The stand-alone Disney+ ad-supported plan will see a $2 increase to $11.99 per month, while the premium no-ads plan will jump $3 to $18.99 per month or get a $30 annual hike to $189.99 per year.
The Disney+ and Hulu ad-supported package will increase by $2 per month, and both of the bundles with Disney+, Hulu and ESPN will see a $3 monthly increase. The packages with Disney+, Hulu and HBO Max will also both increase by $3 per month.
The NFL+ plans will remain at the same pricing.
Kimmel had a clever nod to the boycott during his opening monologue yesterday. He said he was going to read a statement from Disney with conditions for his return to air, and it was just brief instructions on how to reactivate your Disney+ and Hulu accounts.
This is such a dumb move from Disney! It was surely in the works for a while, but they should have delayed it at least a month. Now there’s even less incentive for people to re-subscribe after the boycott. You can see the full price increase here. By raising prices for ad-supported packages they’re just nickle and diming their customers who can least afford the service. I was considering resubscribing to Hulu and Disney+ after dumping them for censoring Kimmel. I might if there’s specific content I want, but for now I’ll save that money and invest it in AMC A-List. I have no moral high ground, I subscribe to Fubo for my job primarily and that’s owned by Disney. As Kismet wrote yesterday, it’s hard to boycott these media monopolies. We can do it though, and we should continue to vote with our wallets.
The CEO of Disney, Bob Iger (shown here), makes $41.1 million a year.
