The top Disney Plus exec says it will have to push beyond its family-friendly image to succeed, and its Netherlands test run hints at how

• One of Disney Plus' biggest challenges, when it launches in the US on November 12, will be pushing beyond the company's family friendly image to attract a broader audience of streaming users, Kevin Mayer, the Disney exec overseeing the platform, said at a media event in New York in November.
• A two-month trial of the service in the Netherlands shed some light on how the effort is faring, execs at the event said.
• Marvel movies, which have an audience that skews older and male, were among the first titles that people watched after they signed up for the Disney Plus trial.
• The three most-consumed TV shows during the trial also spanned three very different demographics.
• Though there's no guarantee viewer trends in the Netherlands will hold up, third-party research also shows Disney Plus is building buzz among US adults and males.
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Disney Plus, designed for kids and families, aims to become the largest "niche" streaming service on the market.

The subscription streaming platform, which launches on November 12, has a target of amassing 60 million to 90 million subscribers globally by 2024, roughly the amount of time it took Netflix to amass a streaming member base of that size, after launching streaming as a standalone service.

Disney is trying to position the family friendly Disney Plus to appeal to the widest possible audience - a "four quadrant audience," as its execs are fond of saying - of adults and children, and men and women. And it's doing so without any of the the hard-hitting dramas and boundary-pushing comedies for mature audiences that have come to define the golden age of streaming TV.

Instead, Disney is leaning on its brands like Marvel, Stars Wars, and Pixar that have fan bases the company says span generations and genders.

Disney execs, speaking at a media event in New York on November 8, pointed to findings from a two-month trial of Disney Plus in the Netherlands as an early sign that the service is attracting every member of the family.

"The one thing that we could be somewhat concerned about is that people will think Disney Plus, because of the Disney brand, as a kids and family service only," Kevin Mayer, chairman of Disney's direct-to-consumer and international business, said. "It's really not, we're positioning it to be very different than that."

The Netherlands trial of Disney Plus found that adults, not just kids, were watching the service

Mayer said that viewing during the service's trial in the Netherlands, which featured a more limited library of content than will be available on the full service, was driven by all four of its core audiences:

• Marvel movies were the biggest drivers of first streams, a key metric that tracks the first titles that people watched after signing up a streaming service. The audience for those films skews older, and male, Mayer said.
• The three "most-consumed" TV shows on Disney Plus in the Netherlands were:
  • "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D," a Marvel series with a core audience of adults ages 18 to 49
  • "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody," a Disney Channel series from the 2000s that has found new audiences with pre-teens on Disney Plus
  • "Mickey Mouse Club House," a classic Disney series aimed at two- to five-year-olds

The execs did not reveal how many people signed up for the trial in the Netherlands, or the demographics of the trial subscribers.

Disney said in April when it announced Disney Plus that it expected the main Disney brand to appeal to families; Pixar movies to resonate most with millennials of both genders; Marvel series and movies to attract young adults, especially men; Star Wars programming to draw in Gen X men; and National Geographic programming to hit with all four audiences.

"We weren't surprised" at the results of the trial, Mayer said. "We confirmed the four-quadrant nature of the content appeal, which is a really nice affirmation to have."

Disney has plotted the next three years of programming for Disney Plus

The company is also building on its library of existing content with originals aimed at the four core audiences.

Its highest-profile original, which will be available when the service launches, is "The Mandalorian," a series set in the Star Wars universe, with violence and action that may brush up against the borders of the platform's PG-13 and TV-14 content-rating limit, based on clips shown to reporters at the event.

It also has a number of unscripted shows aimed at adults and women, like "Encore!," a series produced by Kristen Bell that reunites former musical troupes to perform their high-school musicals. The platform is also reviving the Disney Channel TV-movie series "High School Musical" in the form of a TV show.

Disney Plus will, of course, also have originals for the whole family, like Disney's live-action "The Lady and the Tramp," and series like Pixar's "Forky Asks a Question."

And the media giant has put its vast portfolio of entertainment properties to work promoting the platform, including its theme parks, retail stores, morning talk shows, and TV networks, as the New York Times reported.

Still, Disney Plus has a notable gap in scripted dramas and comedies that are not in the Star Wars or Marvel universes, which could make it a harder sell for some adults, who aren't drawn to popcorn flicks, or fantasy or science fiction shows.

Disney has plotted out the next three to four years of programming for Disney Plus, including 30 original series and 15 movies that are due to hit the platform in its first year, Ricky Strauss, president of content and marketing for Disney Plus, said at the event. It plans to release programming weekly, on Fridays, to keep the library from getting stale.

"What we've tried to do is ensure that, from all of our brands, there's gonna be new content dropped every week," Strauss said.

There's no guarantee that early viewer trends in the Netherlands will hold up in the US, but there are some other good signs

There's no guarantee that the viewing trends in the Netherlands will hold up in the US, where people have more streaming options available to them, including Disney's Hulu, which is designed for a more general audience.

But, so far, the potential US audience for Disney Plus is skewing younger and male.

An October UBS survey found that about half of men surveyed said they were "extremely" or "somewhat" likely to subscribe to Disney Plus, compared to 36% of women surveyed. 62% of 18- to 34-year-olds surveyed also said they were likely subscribe, compared to 53% of respondents ages 35 to 54, and 15% of people ages 55 and up.

Overall, 44% of the respondents said they were likely to subscribe to Disney Plus.