How Disney+ is bringing back old-fashioned TV channels

Twenty-five years ago, the arrival of TiVo marked the beginning of broadcast television’s decline. First, we looked at recording and skipping ads. In response, cable companies began selling their own boxes and offering more on-demand shows. In 2007, Netflix laid the foundation for what would become the primary way people watch things on their televisions: a big, giant stack of shows and movies, searchable and organized into a series of lists. Switching between channels has been replaced by scrolling and tapping, a plethora of much finer options that now compete individually for viewers’ attention.

Now, after “peak streaming” and somewhere in “streaming trough,” viewers are getting tired. It turns out that choosing from thousands of options across a dozen streaming services is “overwhelming” and leads to “decision fatigue.” Subscription growth is slowing. The churn is high. Now Disney, the second or third largest streaming service depending on how you count, has decided that the viewing experience is missing something: channels. Sorry, “streams” or a collection of “collection of relaxed viewing experiences”:

A collection of seasonal content from across the Disney+ catalog begins with Hallowstream for Halloween. Hits & Heroes features a compilation of action-packed stories from well-known brands and franchises including Disney, Marvel and Star Wars. Throwbacks is a destination for always-on nostalgic pop culture content. Real Life offers a range of traditional documentaries, biopics and true stories. These four streams will initially be available to Premium subscribers at launch.

Broadcast and cable channels were technological necessities – there was no way to deliver programming other than on multiple channels and in a linear format. Programming, the practice and task of figuring out what happens when, has been replaced on streaming services by recommendations that are often automated and personalized. From the cold standpoint of getting people to spend more time watching something, this is probably a more effective model for TV distribution. But there’s no reason why streamers can’t do things the old way, and Disney isn’t the first to try it, although the product description of what it does is probably the funniest and closest thing to it Danger! Answer for “What are channels?”: “Carefully curated, continuous streams of programming based on seasonality or interest that subscribers can enjoy without having to select title by title.”

The most recent precursor to streams, albeit much smaller, would be Criterion’s 24/7, which adds a programmed movie channel to the streaming service; NBC’s Peacock also has a long list of channels organized by theme (“Black-Led Drama”), genre (“Laugh Here”) and shows (“Law & Order”). Much more popular are so-called FAST (free, ad-supported television) services, including the Tubi, Freevee and Roku channels, which essentially recreate a version of cable television in their respective apps and, in contrast, mix linear and on-demand programming, Disney’s streams, at least for now, a whole bunch of unskippable commercials that, well, welcome a return to 1999.

If the beginning of the streaming era was defined by shows created for linear broadcast on television channels and repurposed as consumable streaming fodder, perhaps the next era will be about shows created for streaming services and as linear program fillers were repurposed. Maybe that’s what people want! Or perhaps it’s a way to soften the news about another streaming trend Disney is embracing: Get ready for another price hike.