star wars is 2 hours of content a year. maybe you can stretch that to 60 if you push out a bunch of 'star wars universe' content. and you can just pay $15 to see that in a theatre
netflix added 600 hours of content in 2016 and will surely dwarf that in 2017 and beyond
disney is in a for a rude awakening if they think they can go it alone in this marketplace
Netflix may have added 600 hours but have you plumbed what Netflix adds? Most of the content is crap. Content is not a numbers game it is a hits game.
"Star Wars is worth more than harry potter and james bond combined."[1]
Just the first 6 episodes of Star Wars is 17 hours of footage. This does not include special features, cartoons and other offshoots in this franchise.
Access to this on a whim, along with immediate access to exclusive preview-type content every year prior to the theatrical release is seriously valuable on its own.
I'd venture many people are HBO Go subscribers simply for Game of Thrones right now. And that more than enough do not bother to unsubscribe in the off season.
I think people on HN underestimate how people value content. They don't realize people pay huge sums for complete garbage cable content plans already. A commercial free experience of Disney content, particularly Star Wars / Marvel powered with exclusives priced the same as HBO or Netflix would probably do great.
Content is hits+depth. You do the 30 day trial to watch star wars, then stay on because you find other stuff you like. Unless you're going to watch a different star wars movie every week[1], you can just rent or buy the star wars movies for cheap.
1: By 2019 there should be about a dozen feature-length star wars movies, counting the 3 2-hour television specials, so you're right that just star wars movies is not that great.
Truly, I think you're underestimating what people will pay for to get exclusive content in their core interest. Star Wars film releases are rapidly becoming an annual, family tradition for movie goers.
When you can drip out production updates and use electronic marketing channels to hype them or include fan AMA type stuff, there is big potential here to keep people around.
But to your point, if you take Star Wars out of the picture, you still get the entire Disney film collection. Just about every middle class family in America in the 90s had some portion of the Disney VHS collection on their shelves.
I don't see this desire for easy access to familiar, high quality, family-friendly content going away. I see it increasing.
Star Wars is already the movies, plus two animated series (Clone Wars and Rebels). You can look at the Marvel strategy to see where it could go, with multiple movies a year plus multiple tv/streaming series (Agents of Shield, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Legion, Defenders, Gifted, Inhumans, Punisher, Runaways). If all that Marvel content moves to Disney streaming, plus new Star Wars content, plus their kids TV shows, plus Pixar, ABC, and ESPN, then you have a package that is really strong.
Atleast 50% of the marvel content on your list are Netflix Owned Orginals, they can not pulled to Disney's new service. This would be Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Defenders, Punisher. It is highly unlikely Netflix would be stupid enough not to have those locked down.
Agents of Shield I believe a ABC owned production, and would be governed under what ever terms Netflix and ABC have, Same with Inhumans I would image but it is a newer property so it might have to stings attached it to
Movies, yes those will likely be pulled. I can see the Non-Netflix Originals being pulled.. maybe.
Based on both an article from the announcement time [1] and the wiki page [2] the Defenders are jointly produced by Marvel TV and ABC Studios, merely distributed by Netflix. If that is true[3], then Disney (which owns Marvel and ABC) owns the rights to them, and once the current contract expires Netflix will no longer be able to distribute (stream) any of the Defenders series.
That would apply to Agents of Shield as well, which is also part of the Disney family.
Even if Netflix retains streaming rights to some of the existing episodes they co-produced, Disney owns the properties and future seasons will show up on Disney's streaming service.
The various incarnations of the Disney Channel currently have 33 ongoing series and 6 upcoming series. There are hundreds of completed series. Their back-catalog will probably be smaller than netflix in 2019, but they have more new content than you would think.
netflix added 600 hours of content in 2016 and will surely dwarf that in 2017 and beyond
disney is in a for a rude awakening if they think they can go it alone in this marketplace