The differences between the video and music-streaming worlds have been highlighted again, with the news that Disney is pulling its content from Netflix at the end of 2018.
Why? Because the company is planning to launch its own video-streaming service in 2019, starting in the US.
Disney is buying a majority stake in tech firm BAM Tech for $1.58bn to power the new service, as well as a planned sport-focused ESPN streaming service.
“This represents a big strategic shift for the company,” CEO Bob Iger told CNBC, suggesting that controlling its own streaming platform will give Disney “control of our destiny”. The announcement was enough to send Netflix’s share-price dropping by more than 5%.
As we said, this all highlights the differences between the video and music-streaming worlds: in the latter the prospect of, say, Universal Music pulling its content from Spotify in order to launch its own streaming service is remote, to say the least.
The video-streaming world is much more of a patchwork, which means content owners with strong brands like Disney (see also: HBO) can launch their own subscription services.
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