Does Content Overlap Matter In Streaming Bundle Era?

Or really, did it ever matter at all?

Since its inception, Disney+ has approached its content rollout in a way that theoretically both keeps subscribers around (churn avoidance) and prevents audiences from feeling overwhelmed within that specific ecosystem. That is to say, the Disney+ shows come out one at a time, and within a week or two of the conclusion, the next one starts up.

This setup very much mimics theatrical releases — don’t cannibalize your own movie — but in an increasingly crowded streaming landscape, you could argue the piecemeal approach actually makes a service more dispensable because there simply isn’t enough “new” on to warrant the escalating price points to subscribe.

Take Netflix, for instance, which famously puts out a slew of new content all the time, and releases all of the episodes in a single drop.

Many choose to binge those new shows or movies the weekend they’re out. But the algorithm is such that if someone misses content that appeals to their viewership habits, Netflix has them find one another eventually. Because of its shear volume (well beyond 18,000 titles, as The New York Times pointed out late in 2024), Netflix can effectively function as the entirety of the old “cable” bundle model, which always had/has competing shows across networks — withmany of those finding their own versions of success.

Disney (and other streamers like Apple and Amazon) don’t necessarily embrace this sort of approach, which may only bolster Netflix’s stranglehold on the streaming ecosystem (non-YouTube division, of course). Netflix is where you find something you want to watch. Disney+ and others become services you go to for a specific program, and then potentially bounce away from until the next one that you like comes along.

This particular dynamic comes up as Disney+ grows into itself as a window into the larger Disney streaming ecosystem, with Disney+ and Hulu (and some aspects of ESPN+) all under one roof, should you subscribe to all of them, leading to the inevitable “traffic jam.”

Such is the case this week, with the first three episodes of Marvel show Ironheart and the binge drop of The Bear season four running directly into one another.

Whether the audiences overlap is not necessarily the issue. That data’s out there, and Disney has it, and I wish I could get my hands on it, to be honest — just to see if The Bear’s return is stealing from the MCU title.

The more interesting question is whether or not audiences tuning into the Disney bundle for The Bear will end up jumping into Ironheart next, or vice versa, because the service displaying both prominently (and potentially advertising both during the other) puts them top-of-mind for consumers in a finite space. Every episode of The Bear’s season four is already out, and Ironheart is doing two separate three-episode drops and done.

Here, unlike most Disney-related shows — which typically appear weekly — there’s an opportunity to see just what a Disney bundle viewer journey can look like, and create a more complete experience for those subscribers that caters new shows to different content preferences. Some of those will have overlap. Others may not. But the general idea is that having multiple shows hitting at once is a rising tide that lifts all boats, be they Marvel, Star Wars or more “adult” Hulu/FX fare.

If this all sounds familiar, it should. As discussed earlier, Netflix didn’t create this idea. Just perfected it at scale.

Before them, broadcast networks had programming blocks literally designed to do this exact thing, and… would you believe, it? It worked!

NBC’s “Must See TV” was a viewership and ad juggernaut in the 1990s, and that stretched into the 2000s as well with new comedies like The Office, 30 Rock, Community, and Parks and Rec. Just because that centralized TV reality doesn’t exist anymore, it doesn’t mean its core principles are gone. Giving audiences a ton of new and quality content to watch at the same general time of year can make a streaming service invaluable today. Yet, Netflix is really the only service doing so; in part because of the financial needs required, while its competitors are largely cash-strapped media companies trying to exist on streaming OR tech giants like Apple and Amazon less interested in being entertainment companies.

To bring things back around to Disney, the overlap right now could hint at something to come… Or simply be a case of Disney trying to avoid putting too much behind the last few MCU shows as it changes its approach to those properties.

With luck for them, it’s the former, though. And is a sign of a streaming approach that is constantly looking fresh and new in a way that keeps subscribers not just paying, but actively watching everything regardless of how much else is coming out around it.

Y’know, like TV.