Disney+ is making ready to roll out a TikTok-style short-form video feed in the US later this yr, signaling a shift in how the streaming service needs audiences to work together with its platform.
The replace was introduced throughout Disney’s Tech + Knowledge Showcase at CES 2026 and displays the corporate’s broader effort to extend every day engagement and enchantment to scrolling-first viewers.
The brand new function will introduce a devoted feed of quick movies that features authentic clips, curated social-style content material, and temporary highlights pulled from Disney’s films and tv reveals. In keeping with Disney, the expertise is designed to really feel intuitive for cell customers, permitting viewers to find content material by way of vertical scrolling reasonably than conventional looking menus.
Erin Teague, government vice chairman of product administration for Disney Leisure and ESPN, stated the objective is to make discovery really feel pure to how audiences already eat content material on their telephones. As a substitute of deciding what to observe upfront, customers can casually scroll by way of quick clips that floor reveals, franchises, and moments aligned with their pursuits.
Disney has beforehand examined comparable performance inside its ESPN app. In 2025, ESPN launched personalised short-form feeds centered on sports activities highlights and real-time updates. The obvious success of that experiment helped inform the growth of short-form video into Disney’s essential leisure platform.
The transfer comes as streaming providers compete extra straight with social media platforms for consumer consideration. Youthful audiences, specifically, are likely to favor quick, snackable content material earlier than committing to full-length episodes or movies. Quick-form feeds decrease the barrier to entry by emphasizing passive discovery over deliberate alternative.
Disney+ follows a rising trade pattern. Netflix launched a vertical discovery feed final yr that includes clips from its authentic programming. Disney goals to distinguish its strategy by way of deeper personalization and a mixture of leisure highlights, behind-the-scenes moments, and franchise updates.
If profitable, the function might rework Disney+ from an app opened primarily for brand new releases into one customers examine every day, blurring the road between streaming platforms and social media-style content material feeds.
Disney+ depends on expertise developed by Disney Streaming, which was initially established as BAMTech in 2015 when it was spun off from MLB Superior Media (MLBAM). Disney elevated its possession share of BAMTech to a controlling stake in 2017 and subsequently transferred possession to Walt Disney Direct-to-Client & Worldwide, as a part of a company restructuring in anticipation of Disney’s acquisition of twenty first Century Fox, by way of which the Star model was inherited and received retooled as a content material platform inside the service in some areas, with Latin America having its personal standalone service, Star+, till June 26 and July 24, 2024. The Star[c] model was phased out on October 8, 2025, being changed with Hulu outdoors the US besides Japan as a result of current Hulu Japan.
With BAMTech serving to to launch ESPN+ in early 2018, and Disney’s streaming distribution cope with Netflix ending in 2019, Disney took the chance to make use of applied sciences being developed for ESPN+ to determine a Disney-branded streaming service that might function its content material. Manufacturing of movies and tv reveals for unique launch on the platform started in late 2017.
Disney+ was launched on November 12, 2019, in the US, Canada and the Netherlands, and expanded to Australia, New Zealand and Puerto Rico every week later. It grew to become accessible in choose European nations in March 2020 and in India in April by way of Star India’s Hotstar streaming service, which was rebranded as Disney+ Hotstar. Extra European nations obtained Disney+ in September 2020, with the service increasing to Latin America in November 2020. It later expanded in Southeast Asian nations since 2021, adopted by nations in Northern and Japanese Europe, Center East and components of Africa since Might 2022.
Upon launch, it was met with constructive reception of its content material library, however was criticized for technical issues and lacking content material. Alterations made to movies and tv reveals additionally attracted media consideration. Ten million customers had subscribed to Disney+ by the top of its first day of operation.
Within the third quarter of 2024, the variety of international Disney+ subscribers amounted to 153.8 million. This marked a progress of round seven million in contrast with the identical quarter of the earlier yr.
