• by Wayne Friedman , November 11, 2021

Although new Disney+ and Hulu streaming subscribers underwhelmed in the third quarter, the demand for overall Walt Disney corporate-wide owned content is strong.

In the third quarter, the audience “demand share” for all original TV/movie series content owned by Disney -- for all platforms -- was at a 20.1% share, according to Parrot Analytics -- tops among all major TV media companies.

ViacomCBS was next at 13.1%, followed by WarnerMedia with 12.1%; NBCUniversal at 10.6%; Netflix with 7.7.%; and Discovery at 7.1%.

But more telling, in the closely watched premium streaming world, is demand share for digital originals -- content created and aired for digital platforms. Here, Netflix -- the overall premium TV-video streaming marketplace leader -- dominates with a 43.7% share number.

Other traditional legacy media companies -- as well as more recent streaming platforms -- are far behind: Disney with a 8.9% share, followed by Amazon Prime Video, 8.6%; Hulu, 7.2%; Apple TV+, 6.5%; HBO Max, 6.1% and Paramount+, 3.9%. Other media platforms collectively have a 15.2% share.

Much attention has been focused on traditional media companies that recently made a transition to streaming.

Analysts project Disney+ will need to ramp up original content production spending beyond the estimated $8 billion to $9 billion for the company -- just to catch up.

In the latest quarter, Disney+ added 2.1 million global subscribers, now totaling 118.1 million -- well below many media analyst projections for the service by around 7 million. Hulu is at 39.7 million.

Parrot’s demand-share numbers are derived from audience-behavior data obtained from various sources.

This includes search engines, informational sites, fan and critic rating sites, blogs, social-media platforms, peer-to-peer apps and open streaming platforms. In addition, it also looks at video consumption, social media engagement and other consumer activities.