We Go Now Live to Disney+
Streamers are putting more emphasis on live programming, but it's more broadly about programming that gets your attention.
I was super, extremely, extra aware all last week that the Elton John concert — officially Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodger Stadium — was streaming live Sunday night on Disney+.
I had seen numerous preview stories on Apple News (where I follow a lot of TV media), on Feedly (where I follow a lot of TV media), in newsletters (where I follow a lot of TV media), and on Twitter (where I followed a lot of TV media until Saturday when I deleted my account).
The livestream started started at 11 p.m. on the East Coast with a nice collection of messages from Meghan and Harry, the Bidens, etc. The staging with giant digital monitors looked great on TV. Sir Elton started with “Benny and the Jets,” and the lights flash on those staggered, iconic intro chords. The 4k streaming on my 75-inch Samsung Neo QLED 4k was flawlessly un-chuggy.
I asked several people on Monday if they watched Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodger Stadium, and not a one of them were even aware of it. That’s how it goes today: If a new show’s media coverage or marketing doesn’t crack your filter bubble or if what actually does get through doesn’t grab your attention, it may as well not exist.
Noisy Programming Grows Subscribers
“Tentpoles make advertisers happy and make viewers happy,” media analyst and former Paramount TV exec Andrew Rosen told me. “It’s why MTV still has the MTV Music Awards even thought MTV doesn’t even have music videos anymore.”
Noise matters, and the most successful event programming — the Game of Thrones finale, Election Night, the Super Bowl — is the noisiest. It’s the stuff you anticipate, don’t want to miss, and have to watch live.
Paramount+ said last Sunday was its biggest single day for signups on the series premiere of Sylvester Stallone’s Tulsa King and CBS’s afternoon NFL lineup, and Amazon reported more Prime Video signups during its first Thursday Night Football game than any other three-hour period in the company’s history, and the games are averaging 10.3 million viewers.
Disney+ is almost certainly looking for more concerts and musicals to eventize. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see Disney and the Motion Picture Academy work out terms to stream the Academy Awards on Disney+ in March 2023.
Weekly Shows Drive Return Visits
Once a streamer has your attention, the next task is keeping your attention. As Rolling Stone TV critic Alan Sepinwall noted in his What’s Alan Watching Substack:
HBO still brings viewers in on Sunday nights at 9 for House of the Dragon, and even streamers like Pluto now offer regularly-scheduled "channels" for viewers who would rather browse whatever is on rather than having to pick a specific show or movie themselves. Even Netflix execs occasionally broach the idea of doing the same.
HBO’s The White Lotus is a weekly watch for me right now. I started Season 1 a few episodes late last year and was watching weekly by the third or fourth episode. It wasn’t just me; same-day viewing for the six-episode first season more than tripled from the first episode to the finale as word of mouth, Vulture recaps, podcasts, etc., pushed more and more viewers to start watching and catch up before the season finale.
Marvel Studios original shows (Ms. Marvel, She Hulk: Attorney at Law) and Lucasfilm original shows (Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor) have given Disney+ a regular drip-drip-drip weekly shows that have reduced the incentive for viewers to sign up for the service, watch a few things, cancel, and come back a few months later.
Netflix has resisted doing the same, and I think to its detriment. I’d love to see Netflix start running its biggest, highest-profile shows like The Crown and Stranger Things in weekly episodes that would promote more discussion on social media and podcasts between episodes, give more viewers a chance to catch up while the show is still airing, and reduce subscriber churn by pacing shows out.
When reality mainstay Dancing with the Stars moved from ABC to Disney+ this season, it was Monday night appointment viewing the same as the last 30 seasons. The show probably wasn’t a big hit — Disney would have said so if it was — but it transitioned incrementally more ABC appointment viewers into Disney+ appointment viewers.
Celebrities Drive Their Own Noise
Celebrity-driven unscripted is a hot format right now because celebrities cut through the noise; they get news coverage, they have their own large followings to promote their projects, and people will watch because they’re fans. A big reason Selena Gomez had the clout to sell Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me to Apple TV+ was that she could promote it to her 360 million Instagram followers.
Yet another cooking competition show is suddenly more interesting when it’s The Big Breakfast hosted by Schitt’s Creek star Dan Levy. A show about sustainability and environmental concerns in Australia is easier for Netflix to market when it’s called Down to Earth with Zac Efron: Down Under.
A National Geographic documentary series about longevity on Disney+ is getting much more attention as Limitless with Chris Hemsworth with the Marvel star — Thor: Love and Thunder now streaming on Disney+ — walking across a beam on the top of a skyscraper and swimming in arctic water than it would with a bunch of Ph.D.s talking about the nutritional benefits of eating phytoplankton.
Disney+ premieres documentary feature Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage? on December 9 that falls into the celebrity-documentary category and that Disney can promote to its Frozen faithful. A Jeremy Renner docuseries called Renervations is coming to Disney+ in early 2023. Expect more like these.
Disney+ Will Have an Eventful 2023 Lineup
Robert Iger’s return as CEO of Disney will likely not have much of an impact on Disney+ originals. Those projects have a year-plus gestation period from pitch to final edit, and many are already in production or finished.
Marvel Studios will have a big slate of 2023 originals including Secret Invasion, What If…? Season 2, Loki Season 2, Echo, Ironheart, and Agatha: Coven of Chaos. Lucasfilm will have Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2, Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew. There will be Pixar and Disney originals plus studio films a few months after their theatrical release.
A bigger emphasis on live events could actually factor into 2023 since those come together more quickly than a scripted series. Streaming one of Taylor Swift’s tour dates next summer would be a big deal. Live-recorded versions of musicals like Aladdin or The Lion King would be on-brand. Adding an ABC News tab to Disney+ would almost certainly result in me watching more ABC News coverage.
Where Iger will have more influence is in Disney+ programming for 2024 and beyond. Wall Street is already out on Disney+ losing $1 billion a quarter, so Disney will have to focus its originals and its scheduling on what consumers will sign up for Disney+ to watch and what will keep existing subscribers interested.
I suspect that means a greater emphasis on event programming that puts Disney+ in the spotlight. That could mean Disney+ sharing Monday Night Football with ESPN or bringing a critical mass of ABC, ESPN, and ESPN+ sports into Disney+. That could mean bringing more shows and movies to Disney+ instead of Hulu.
Disney looks to be one of the four or five global streamers left standing a decade from now, and Elton John Live and Dancing With the Stars are steps toward the all-audience streamer that Disney+ is already becoming.