Disney + will offer in Spain from November 1 a version with advertisements at a price of 5.99 euros per month. The company already launched this plan in the United States in December last year, with the intention of expanding it internationally throughout 2023. Along with Spain, the new subscription with advertising will also be available in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, as announced by the platform in a statement on Thursday.
The new Standard plan with ads, as it will be called, will mean the creation of two other contracting options: Standard and Premium, both without advertising. So far, Disney + had a single subscription modality in Spain, at a cost of 8.99 euros per month or 89.90 euros with the annual subscription. From November 1, in Spain the contracting options of Disney + will be the following:
Standard with ads: 5.99 euros per month.
Standard: 8.99 euros per month / 89.90 euros in annual subscription.
Premium: 11.99 euros per month / 119.90 euros in annual subscription.
As announced by the platform, the content available will be the same in all versions. Any of them will offer access to its entire catalog, with series such as The Mandalorian, The Bear, Only Murders in the Building, The Simpsons or Grey's Anatomy, as well as a wide range of films and documentaries. But there are differences in some functionalities. The standard versions allow up to two streaming streams at the same time, while the premium version elevates that option up to four simultaneous profiles. The version with ads does not allow downloads for viewing without an internet connection, a possibility that is available in the options without ads. In terms of video and audio quality, the two standard versions will offer a viewing quality of up to full HD 1080p and 5.1 audio and stereo, while the premium option raises the viewing quality up to 4K UHD / HDR and Dolby Atmos sound.
There is an important peculiarity that should be taken into account: current subscribers of Disney + (who are paying 8.99 euros per month) will see how their subscription is transformed into premium automatically from that day. This means that, those who do not change their plan, will be charged the new price (11.99 euros per month) from the first billing cycle, after December 6, as specified in the company's note. They always have the option to switch to either of the two standard plans, but they will need to be vigilant to make the switch if they wish.
One year after Netflix
The version of Disney + with ads arrives in Spain a year after it did, in November 2022, the plan with advertising of Netflix. The price of this option on the Stranger Things platform is 5.49 euros per month. At the moment, it offers three other contracting possibilities, all without ads: basic (7.99 euros per month), standard (12.99) and premium (17.99), although in several countries the basic option without ads is no longer available.
Last May, Netflix announced that, six months after its launch, the ad-supported subscription plan had reached five million monthly active users. Later, in July, when they presented the results of the second quarter, they assured that this subscription modality had managed to double the number of subscribers it had in just three months. However, they acknowledged that it was not yet giving the benefits it should achieve.
Once the platform war has been overcome, the streaming world is in a phase in which it seeks to achieve economic benefits rather than adding subscribers at any price. Hence the movements that have been seen in recent months in these services. What began by introducing advertising on platforms that until recently had boasted of their outright refusal to have ads, continued with the implementation of measures to limit the possibility of sharing a password outside the home (measures that Disney + is also studying to implement in 2024) or price increases.
In July, Netflix reported that it had gained 5.9 million subscribers, well above its forecasts, and more considering that they were the first results announced after the implementation of measures to avoid password sharing outside the home in the United States. However, the stock market did not reward these results with such enthusiasm and the company's shares fell that day. One explanation for this is that, although it gained subscribers, the average profit it gets for each of them is 3% lower than a year ago because many of the new customers came from countries where it maintains low prices to try to gain followers.
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