Disney will begin cracking down on Disney+ password sharing starting in June, embattled Disney CEO Bob Iger said in an interview with CNBC earlier this week. Iger says the entertainment giant is making the move to force households that are sharing Disney+ passwords to get their own subscriptions to “turn it into a growth business.”
“In June, we’ll be launching our first real foray into password sharing,” said Iger. “Just a few countries and a few markets, but then it will grow significantly with a full rollout in September.”
Iger did not clarify the specific areas of the world where the password-sharing lockdown will start.
Disney is following the lead of Netflix which began cracking down on password sharing in 2023, resulting in the streaming service gaining 8.8 million new subscribers in Q3 2023.
Iger said that he admires what Netflix has done, calling the company the “gold standard in streaming.”
Netflix is the gold standard in streaming. They’ve done a phenomenal job in a lot of different directions. I actually have very, very high regard for what they’ve accomplished. If we can only accomplish what they’ve accomplished, that would be great.
Disney+ launched in 2019, and it is now the number two streaming service in terms of subscribers after Netflix. The streaming service has more than 110 million subscribers worldwide.
