The Disney Streaming Service’s Best Customers Will Probably Be Parents

If I told you what I’m watching on TV these days, you’d probably think one of two things: 1) I’m a weird middle-aged man who never grew up, or 2) I’m the parent of a toddler.

Thankfully, #2 is the reason why it seems like Disney’s offerings are playing in my living room every single day. Between musicals like Frozen and Moana, Pixar’s Finding Dory and Disney Junior shows like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Doc McStuffins and Sofia the First, I have more than enough Disney in my life. And now my daughter has discovered a new cartoon, Vampirina, which is essentially a CGI version of The Munsters, only cuter.

Suffice to say, I can’t wait until Disney’s paid SVOD service comes online in 2019.

Yes, Disney forcing us to pay for yet another monthly SVOD service to see their movies sounds like corporate greed at its worst. But if what we are reading about the service comes to pass, then here’s what will be available on the service: Every Disney animated movie, every Pixar animated movie, and all of the animated shows on the various Disney networks (oh, and Star Wars, Marvel and likely much of the 20th Century Fox catalog, but that’s just a bonus). All of this will be for what Disney CEO Robert Iger has said will be a lower monthly cost than Netflix.

This sounds like bliss to any parent who has grumbled when they’re asked to lay out money to see their kids’ favorite movie online. You see, Disney has had a history of making their animated movies a big pain in the ass to find on home video, from the time when they would stash  their classics “in the vault”, only to release them for sale every seven years, to the annoying tendency that any movie over three years old disappears from flat-fee services like Netflix.

So if your wee one just has to see Frozen, or Cars or The Little Mermaid, you either have to fork over $15-20 per video to Amazon, Vudu or another streaming service or spelunk eBay and Amazon Marketplace for a cheap used copy of the DVD or Blu-ray. Try explaining to your screaming kid why he or she won’t be able to see Anna and Elsa belt out “For The First Time In Forever” for 4-6 business days and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Here’s another experience that I’m sure all current parents of young’uns have had:

Kid: “I wanna watch Doc McStuffins Toy Hospital!”
Parent: “OK, let me just find it. Is it on Amazon? Nope.”
Kid: “I wanna watch Doc McStuffins, Dad!”
Parent: “Netflix? Nope. Hulu? Yes, but these aren’t the Toy Hospital episodes.”
Kid: “Daaaaaaaaad! I wanna watch!”
Parent: “Disney Channel? Nope. Disney XD? Nope. Ah! Disney Junior! Shoot, now I need to log into my cable provider.”
Kid: “Waaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!”

Believe me, a single repository, separate from an annoying cable login, that carries every single Disney movie and TV show my kid could likely watch would be a godsend. I will gladly pony up $8 per month — heck, I’d even pay $20 — to the House of Mouse to save me the nightmare of having to find my daughter’s current favorite show or movie (which changes on a weekly basis).

I can see Disney’s marketers leaning heavily on the convenience factor when marketing this service to parents likely starting late in 2018. If they want to make sure they squeeze a few more bucks out of parents, they could even include a six-month free subscription with every copy of Coco or Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Funny ads where kids go from yelling to silence in two seconds flat would play well with the parenting crowd. Because, if parents out there are anything like me, just the smallest taste of digital freedom will get us hooked.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.