A New Disney+ Promotion Is the Latest Bid To Snag Streaming TV Subscribers

The Mouse is on sale—for a while. 

The Walt Disney Co. (DIS) is running a promotion on its Disney+ streaming service, offering new and returning subscribers to its basic plan, which includes ads, for about $2 a month for three months. At that point, the price will rise to about $10—$2 higher than the current monthly rate, in line with Apple’s (AAPL) price and about $3 more than the basic Netflix (NFLX) rate.

The offer—and changes—come as streaming TV models and prices continue to evolve and ahead of the holiday season, during which more limited-time offers are likely to land. Paramount+ (PARA) for example, is currently promoting a discount on its annual rate. Meantime, big streamers are generally working to reduce password sharing. 

Signs of Household Stress Have Spilled Into Streaming Business

They also come as some industry analysts have identified signs of stress in U.S. household economies spilling into the streaming business. A Bank of America report published late last month suggested that both total streaming spending and the number of households with more than one monthly streaming payment have fallen. 

Disney, for its part, is counting on its ability to continue building a product consumers like enough that it can sustain price increases without losing households. 

“Every time we’ve taken a price increase, we’ve had only modest churn from that and nothing that we would consider significant,” Disney Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bob Iger said in an August conference call with analysts, a transcript of which was made available by AlphaSense. “We believe … that the pricing levers that we have has actually increased.”