By Erich Schwartzel
When it comes to the plot details of its next Marvel Studios or
Star Wars installment, Walt Disney Co. keeps things completely
confidential. But the company's forthcoming streaming service
already has premiered weeks before its official launch.
Disney is testing its flagship streaming service, called
Disney+, with a free trial in the Netherlands to gauge consumer
response and iron out any technical kinks before it launches in the
U.S. and other countries on Nov. 12.
Interviews with a small number of Disney+'s first users found
general enthusiasm for the service and the library of programming
it provides, despite some minor technical issues. Roberto
Brandwijk, a 26-year-old insurance adviser from Rotterdam who
signed up for the free trial, said he spends between four and five
hours a day on the service.
Disney's two-month test of the service underscores the
importance of its U.S. launch going well in a digital marketplace
where any initial problem can ruin a first impression. Since
announcing plans to launch Disney+ in August 2017, Disney Chief
Executive Robert Iger has reoriented his company around the
strategy and called it his No. 1 priority. The service is expected
by many in Hollywood and on Wall Street to pose a direct threat to
Netflix Inc., which dominates the streaming marketplace with more
than 150 million global subscribers.
But testing a streaming service is more complicated than
test-screening a movie, which involves renting out a theater and
inviting a focus group to a sneak preview. In the Netherlands,
Disney can quietly test the service in a small, densely populated
country where many residents speak English and are connected to
high-speed internet.
Disney doesn't appear to have targeted specific users to sign up
for the service, instead opening the soft launch up to anyone who
wanted the free trial (and is then kept on as a paying subscriber
after the service launches Nov. 12). Word of the early push into
the Netherlands quickly spread in local media and in online fan
communities.
Joeri Donsu, a 53-year-old children's magazine editor in
Amsterdam, already owns several Marvel and Pixar titles on Blu-ray.
When he signed up for Disney+, he sought out older titles he was
nostalgic for, like "The Rocketeer" and "Race to Witch Mountain."
He found the latter after searching for its Dutch title: "Vlucht
naar de Heksenberg."
He was sorry to find the movies didn't hold up as well as he
thought they did.
"For adults like me, I think Disney+ will shatter a lot of good
memories, " he said.
Disney+ will cost $6.99 a month at launch, or about half the
price of Netflix Inc.'s most popular option. But Netflix also has a
significant advantage over Disney because it has dealt for years
with handling millions of subscribers at once.
A Netflix spokesman didn't respond to request for comment.
Few Disney+ users interviewed by the Journal in the Netherlands
reported major technical snafus, but one common annoyance did
emerge: The service failed to remember when an episode was paused
or stopped, forcing users to fast-forward to where they left off
each time they resumed watching. Others complained about the sound
on programs staying low, despite turning it up to full volume.
A Disney spokeswoman said the company was aware of the issues
and addressing them.
One Disney+ user, Stefan Csiba, said he wrote to Disney to
suggest it change the controls so a movie can be paused by hitting
the spacebar on a laptop, which is allowed on Netflix.
"Because the service is similar to Netflix in terms of the
setup, you would automatically expect them to work the same," Mr.
Csiba said.
He didn't stay deterred for long. "I did binge-watch all nine
Star Wars movies in 2 1/2 days," he said.
Disney+ will have, at the very least, thousands of subscribers
to manage when it launches next month. The company offered
three-year deals to subscribe at its D23 superfan gathering in
August, a promotion that prompted long lines behind each kiosk.
For users like Enya Vermeulen, getting Disney+ gave her the
chance to watch the Marvel superhero offerings that had disappeared
from Netflix in recent months as Disney prepared to launch its
service.
"I was really annoyed when that was pulled off of Netflix," she
said.
Ms. Vermeulen, a 28-year-old biology student at Utrecht
University in Zeist, was pleasantly surprised to find programming
from National Geographic, which became part of Disney after its
$71.3 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox entertainment
assets.
She and her boyfriend are binge-watching "Dr. K.'s Exotic Animal
ER," a reality show about the daily drama at a South Florida
veterinary hospital.
"We watch it every day," she said.
The Disney+ currently available in the Netherlands doesn't carry
the original programming that Disney is producing for the service,
like the Star Wars spinoff "The Mandalorian" or new shows based on
Marvel Studios characters.
Joris van Dinter, a 34-year-old artist from Appeltern who signed
up for Disney+, said he would keep subscribing after the trial ends
to check out those new shows. He will keep his Netflix plan,
too.
Getting Disney+ "will not cancel any current subscriptions," he
said, "although I will probably be watching Netflix less."
Write to Erich Schwartzel at erich.schwartzel@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 07, 2019 05:44 ET (09:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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