This week saw the release of Disney+ Original ‘Extraordinary’ on ITVX in the UK, just over a year after its original first window on Disney+ in both the UK and international markets (and Hulu in the US). This is just the latest in a slow ramp up from Disney, with ‘Under The Banner of Heaven’ set to debut as a boxset on the same service on the 26th February. Show Tracker reveals the latest examples of second window activity for Disney+ series, demonstrating how it remains largely centred around EMEA for now.
In addition to these two high profile ITVX releases, Disney has also licensed all three seasons of ‘Love, Victor’ to BBC Three and the Emmy award winning ‘Abbott Elementary’ to E4. Both of these acquisitions were released as boxsets. While boxset rights are on the table for UK services, exclusivity is not, with all these shows (and pivotally, future seasons) remaining on Disney+ at the same time as their second window premieres on third party services. ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ is another example of this, once promised to BBC Two in the first window as part of a longstanding FX volume deal, the linear channel now is the second home of the comedy’s latest season.
Outside the UK enhanced catch-up is a rarer win for broadcasters. In Germany the best catch-up achieved by linear was for ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ by ProSieben’s Sat.1, with thirty days. Other buyers such as RTL only managed to get seven day catch-up for ‘War of the Worlds’ and Comedy Central had no digital footprint for its second window of ‘Solar Opposites’.
Disney’s second window targets are focused on linear (or in the case of ITVX, linear owned AVOD services) with the one exception of Snowfall in Germany, which had a boxset release of its first five seasons on Amazon Prime.
Outside of the UK and Germany the acquisition activity is focused largely on procedural series, a natural fit for linear services. ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ came to WowWow in Japan, the only recent post Disney+ second window picked up in the last six months outside EMEA. Meanwhile Rai in Italy has taken later seasons of both ‘9-1-1’ and ‘9-1-1: Lone Star’ in the second window with just seven day catch-up. This follows a pattern set from before even the Disney acquisition of 20th Century Fox, where these series first debuted on the Italian Pay TV Fox channel a year before a free TV premiere on Rai 2.
The lack of enhanced catch-up offered has long been a frustration for linear buyers of second window after SVOD, and Disney’s willingness to grant more catch-up rights in the second window may give them an edge over other studios looking to sell their own SVOD originals. The lack of exclusivity can create a win-win for Disney, with second windows not only granting additional revenue but helping advertise the rollout of newer seasons of a show on Disney+. Broadcasters will need to see the value in acquiring these shows reflected in their performance however, or else they may end up seeing these acquisitions backfire, driving their own viewership away onto Disney+. Its up to both parties in these cases to find the balance in value.
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