Following an earnings call last month that had Disney Execs discuss the possibility of “improper sharing”, Disney Plus had built a plan to crack down on password sharing, and now we have an idea when it’ll happen.
In an interview with CNBC, Disney CEO Bob Iger took the stage to discuss Disney Plus plans moving forward. CEO Iger said that they plan to launch their “first foray” into stifling password sharing in June. While the new rules that started to hamstring password sharing went into effect (for new subscribers) in January and (existing subscribers) in March, they’re moving forward with rolling out share-stopping in “just a few countries in a few markets” before it hits all subscribers come September 2024.
Interestingly enough, this news comes out pretty much riding the coattails of the unpopular announcement from Netflix that they may increase their pricing because they can last month. The Disney earnings report from February 2024 says that Disney Plus lost a big chunk of its subscribers, with a decrease of 1.3 million, but on the flip side, Hulu (another Disney-owned service) has increased its subscriber count by 1.2 million, this is also bolstered by the notion of “ESPN’s domestic business grew both revenue and operating income year over year in the first quarter.”
It’s worth mentioning the NCAA March Madness Women’s Tournament has seen meteoric growth due to the super-stardom of players like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, seeing a staggering 12.3 million viewers for the Iowa-LSU Elite Eight matchup this past Monday. An earnings report from March Madness was not included in the February earnings report, and ESPN posted the record-breaking announcement on their official ESPN PR X (formerly Twitter) account, which can be seen below.
Disney Plus CFO Hugh Johnston said accounts “suspected of improper sharing” will get a notification of options to sign up for their membership or even increase the pricing of the subscription for sharing, just like Netflix recently did during the financial call. Johnston referred to password sharing as an “opportunity” and said, “It’s one that our competitor is obviously taking advantage of, and one that sits in front of us” while also suggesting the rollout of the password sharing crackdown will happen in “the next couple of months.”
While it appears many streaming services continue to crack down on password sharing and hike prices amid influxes of profit, Disney did not name a specific date for when the crackdown will commence, but CEO Iger forecasted sometime in June as the window of “opportunity.” Disney Plus consumers can head to the CNBC website to watch the full interview.
