Disney Fires Opening Shot Against Netflix

Disney+ is a steal—or so the company apparently wants you to think. The Walt Disney Co. on Thursday announced that its streaming service will launch Nov. 12 at a cost of $6.99 a month (or $69.99 for a year), a price tag that Variety reports comes in well under Netflix's standard $12.99 plan. CNBC describes the price as actually at the top of the $5 to $7 range analysts had expected. CNN has a different take: It reports there were audible gasps when the price was announced.

The move comes at a cost: It'll be about five years before Disney+ is expected to turn a profit. How it envisions that 2024 future: with somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 million to 90 million subscribers, roughly 30% of whom will be US-based. Some of what subscribers will get, per the AP: Disney classics; new Pixar shorts; The Mandalorian, a new live-action Star Wars from Jon Favreau; a "rebooted" High School Musical Series; National Geographic content; and The Simpsons, in a platform whose "look and feel" isn't all that different from Netflix's, per Bloomberg. (More Walt Disney Co. stories.)