Are DC All Access and Disney Streaming needed?

Are DC and Disney streaming services necessary?

With a horde of Netflix news creeping out of the woodwork, one must wonder if they are seriously looking to take out the competition.

In the wake of the video-on-demand/streaming company’s gains of 5 million subscribers outside of the US and over 850,000 domestically, Netflix also disclosed they are spending $8 billion dollars in original content and other media.

Despite the strong partnership Netflix has with Marvel, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that properties from Marvel and Lucasfilm will be moving to its new streaming service, which is set to launch in 2019 last month.

Back on Apr. 25, The Hollywood Reporter had revealed that DC Entertainment have teamed up with Warner Bros. Digital Network Group to initiate their own streaming service in 2018 to combat the growing success between Marvel/Netflix.

Two new series will be launching on this new platform, one of which is the much awaited, forthcoming, third season of Young Justice: Outsiders.

While the next series is the live–action adaptation for the small screen called Titans, which follow a group of young superheroes that come together in the DC Universe.

With both yet-to-be-named digital platforms that I dub – DC All Access and Disney-pStream (names are not reflective of what they are actually called) – on the playing field do we really need more streaming services on the market?

At the moment, aside from Netflix that is a video streaming giant, Hulu and Amazon Prime are putting up quite a fight. The latter two share approx. 50 percent of its audience outreach in the US. YouTube is catching up behind Netflix with 53 percent.

What can DC All Access and Disney-pStream do that could be worthy of their subscription?

For one, Disney has a colorful and diverse library of animated movies and the majority of them are hits like Zootopia, Finding Dory and Moana.

Netflix has not yet been able to benefit from theatrical releases from the Disney brand.

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Over in the DC corner, across TV and even on the silver screen the company has been reported to be making at least $2.5 billion a year. That is thanks to Chief Creative Officer, Geoff Johns and producers Sarah Schechter – and Arrowverse connoisseur – Greg Berlanti.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings stated:

"“Disney is a great brand with great content but internationally we only have it in the Netherlands, Australia and Canada.”“You saw how big our international growth in most of the world without the Disney content. So although it’s got an enormously significant brand, in terms of its significance relative to growth, you can see that we’ve done very well international without it.”"

Chief of content Ted Sarandos said to Polygon, Netflix would be:

"“Thrilled to partner with [Disney] when they’re ready to.”“I think that everyone is going to have their own strategies and it’s exciting that everyone is trying to make over-the-top (OTT) television better and better.”"

It is clear Netflix – whether they are putting on bravado or not – are neither threatened nor stargazed by outside competition.

On a business standpoint, its understandable Disney would want to step back in paying a license fee for their own content, but while Disney tries to compete on a digital landscape, Netflix is looking to the future.

Next: Top 50 super heroes in comic book history

The future for them is in fact anime. As for DC until further announcements, their exclusivity is looking quite dim for their USP (Unique Selling Point).