Disney announces DisneyLife

Bob Iger and the Walt Disney Company have announced a new streaming service and app. The streaming service called DisneyLife will be accessed via a dedicated app on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones and will also be available on smart TV streaming boxes like the new Apple TV.

DisneyLife is a streaming service that will give subscribers access to classic Disney animated movies and the entire collection of Pixar animated films. The service will include thousands of Disney movies, tv shows and music from the Walt Disney Company. It was announced that Disney Life will launch exclusively in the UK next month. Disney will be quickly expanding to other countries in 2016 and has a goal of bringing the service to France, Spain, Italy and Germany within the next year.

In a statement Disney CEO, Bob Iger said, “This is the future, in many respects…” “…We’re seeing more and more opportunities to reach consumers directly and not through middlemen, and we’re seeing consumers wanting product in different ways.” “DisneyLife is a great example of our strategy to utilize technology to connect with consumers in more direct and compelling ways, something that only Disney can do.”

As we noted earlier The Walt Disney Company is dedicating a large amount of resources to creating mobile app experiences that allow customers to experience and consume content in a variety of innovative ways. The announcement of DisneyLife further solidifies Disney’s place in the “digital-mobile era”. There are currently no plans to bring the service to the US but Iger stated that “The technology platform that this sits on is scalable to the US and is scalable to our other brands,” This is not the first time that Iger has said that Disney could start delivering branded content to consumers by cutting out middleman partners such as cable companies and streaming services like Netflix.

What’s interesting about his statements above is that it hints to what we can expect from other Disney brands in the future. It is safe for us to assume that in the near future we can expect to see other streaming services that incorporate and deliver content that includes other Disney brands such as Marvel and Stars Wars. Not only will we have DisneyLife, we will have separate subscription services for Marvel and Star Wars content that we can access through apps on the device of our choice.

Disney fans who live in the UK will be in for a treat next month when the DisneyLife launches! For those of us in the US and elsewhere, you should check out an app called Disney Movies Anywhere!