Are Disney and Stan Australia about to partner up and offer members a highly discounted bundle deal? All signs suggest that just might be the case.
12 hours and counting until Disney Plus (Disney+) officially goes live in Australia. The service goes live at 6:00 on the 19th of November and Stan Australia are now pulling all their Disney/Marvel content of their streaming service. Does this mean goodbye to the Disney/Stan partnership? We doubt it.
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Although nothing has been confirmed yet we have a good reason to believe that Disney and Stan Australia might be combining forces to take down the current VOD streaming giant Netflix.
Earlier this year Stan Australia announced that all Disney/Pixar/Marvel movies would be exclusively available on their platform. A spokesperson for Disney revealed that they, “want to make Stan Australia the official home for Disney content in Australia.”
In hindsight this deal seems very odd especially considering that Disney were already working on launching their very own VOD streaming service, Disney Plus (Disney+) later this year. Perhaps the partnership was much bigger than they let on.
Stan is pretty much Australia’s version of the popular American VOD streaming service Hulu. The content is pretty much identical and there is a strong connection between the two services; the majority of Stan Original series make their way to Hulu and vice versa.
Hulu is a U.S.-based subscription video on demand service fully controlled and majority-owned by Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International, a business segment of The Walt Disney Company, with NBC Universal, owned by Comcast, as an equity stakeholder owning 33%.
Disney Plus and Stan = Netflix killer
Hulu, Disney Plus (Disney+), and ESPN+ have partnered up to offer new customers a great bundle deal that gives them all three services for USD$12.99 a month. Will we see something similar happen at launch here? We think so!
It’s hard to find logic in Disney’s decision to grant Stan Australia brief exclusivity of its content if there is nothing in it for them. Perhaps The Walt Disney Company is planning on acquiring Stan Australia, or maybe just use their servers while their VOD streaming service launches down under.
If that’s the case it could spell doom for Netflix. Many are already unhappy with the service’s expensive subscription plan. Already this year the service has had two major price hikes and now costs AUD$20 a month. Disney Plus (Disney+) Australian price is only AUD$9.00, so, if like Hulu, Stan partners with Disney Plus (Disney+) and offers both services cheaper than Netflix you an expect to see a lot of people jump ship.
At the moment this is only a speculation although we have reached out to Stan Australia for a comment. But, with only 12 short hours left until the service goes live, I guess we will know soon enough.