It feels as though there’s a new combatant throwing their hat into the ring and diving headfirst into the streaming wars every few months or so, probably because that’s exactly what’s been happening.
None of them have failed quite as spectacularly as Quibi, though, Jeffrey Katzenberg’s $1.75 billion gamble that folded after eight months when he realized it probably wasn’t the smartest idea to launch a short-form platform designed to be watched on the move during the middle of a pandemic, and it didn’t even introduce the capability to play on people’s televisions at home until it was too late.
Since November 2019 alone we’ve seen AppleTV+, Peacock and HBO Max enter the fray, while CBS All Access rebrand Paramount Plus starts rolling out in March, but so far none of them have set the world on fire. The three market leaders by some distance are clearly Netflix, Amazon and Disney Plus, the former of which recently passed the 200 million subscriber milestone.
However, analysts are now predicting that the Mouse House’s platform will eventually topple Netflix to become the biggest game in town, and based on the company’s expansive library of content, the sheer volume of massive brands that fall under their umbrella and the impending international STAR expansion that will add a slew of R-rated Fox content behind a parental control, it might even happen sooner than expected.
Disney Plus is closing in on 100 million subscribers after just fourteen months in existence, and if they keep up that speed of growth, which is entirely possible and very likely given that streaming is set to be the main focus of the studio moving forward, then they could realistically be within touching distance of Netflix by the end of this year.