Will Disney+ Ever Have Ads? CEO Bob Chapek Hints It Might

Among the strongest growing streaming platforms currently, Disney+ shows its prowess every day with the countless Pixar, Star Wars, and Marvel’s new and old content in its roster.

A significant chunk of what attracts its 116 million+ global subscriber base is its ad-free service.

Much like Amazon Prime and Netflix, Disney+ offers zero ad services to its users. But the tables turn when it comes to Hulu, which offers an ad-free version at a higher rate.

The ever-growing Disney+ hasn’t ruled out including ads on the platform, though.

During a virtual Q&A at the Goldman Sachs 30th Annual Communacopia Conference, Disney’s CEO Bob Chapek mentioned advertising for Disney+ while talking about Hulu’s advertising.

Chapek compared both the platforms and rightfully shared that Disney+ still has a more family-friendly, kid-loving stance, especially with Disney Junior.

On the other hand, Hulu is a platform targeting adults more, with its darker take on shows and movies. Hence, signifying “no size fits all” as part of their advertising on Hulu, as both platforms target contrasting audiences.

However, he did go on to say that “everything is “malleable.”

For example, Disney+ has a lot of kids that watch it, and the taste for us to consider advertising on something like Disney+ would be completely different than it might be on a Hulu. So then again, you take that individual, no one-size-fits-all type approach that we are looking at across the world.

And you say where do we have that opportunity? Where do we not have that opportunity? And then how does that change over time as we look at combining things or keeping things separate à la carte?

And so all this is malleable. Again, it’s soft clay right now. And we are very pleased with what we are seeing with addressable advertising on Hulu.

Disney+ has multiple ways to make more money—Premier Access being one of them. While Premier Access has been controversial—with the Black Widow lawsuit and Shang Chi release—it has also been beneficial financially.

So it does make sense that Chapek doesn’t want to upset the current and soon-to-be subscribers with an advertising scare.

The company is taking things slowly as Chapek, for now, is really happy. But it isn’t written in stone that Disney+ will forever be ad-free.

But for right now, again, really happy with sort of the à la carte mode that we have with this bundling opportunity and keeping things the way they are, but that doesn’t say that in the future, we might not look at different opportunities for an increased level of addressable advertising across our platforms.

Disney+ won’t include ads soon, but fans should mentally prepare themselves for the eventuality that it definitely might someday. 

Source: whatsondisneyplus