Does Disney Pus Have Ads? Watching your favorite movies and TV shows without ads was one of the main reasons people signed up for streaming platforms. However, slowly but surely, ads are making their way into your binge-watching sessions.
Disney Plus has joined popular streaming platforms and launched an ad-supported subscription plan called Disney Plus Basic. You’ll get the same content for a lower price, and you’ll have to sit through ads every once in a while. While paying less always sounds good.
Does Disney Pus Have Ads?
However, the Disney Plus Basic plan comes with a disadvantage. Because the ads are loaded at the time of viewing, the plan doesn’t support offline viewing. If you want to skip the ads and download Disney Plus content, you have to spend a few more dollars and subscribe to Disney Plus Premium for $11.99 per month. You should know that Disney will automatically upgrade your subscription plan to Disney+ Premium on your next billing cycle.
So, if you don’t want to spend more on your subscription, you should manually downgrade your plan to Disney Plus Basic.
Disney Plus Bundle Options with Ads:
- Disney Bundle Duo Basic: Disney Plus (with ads), Hulu (with ads), $9.99/month
- Disney Bundle Trio Basic: Disney Plus (with ads), Hulu (with ads), ESPN Plus (with ads), $14.99/month
- Trio Basic: Hulu (with ads), plus access to Disney+ (with ads) and ESPN+ (with ads), $14.99/month
- Trio Premium: Disney+ (no ads), Hulu (no ads), and ESPN+ (with ads), $24.99/month
When Did Disney Plus with Ads First Arrive?
Disney execs first announced the new “with ads” tier of Disney Plus in early March 2022, and at the time, they pegged a “late 2022” rollout. During an earnings call five months later, Disney execs finally nailed down a launch date for the newly dubbed Disney Plus Basic tier: Thursday, December 8, 2022. Moving ahead, the existing, ad-free Disney Plus plan will be known as Disney Plus Premium.
Is Disney Plus Basic Missing Any Features?
While Disney Plus’s new ad-supported tier offers 4K HDR streaming just like the ad-free Disney Plus Premium tier does, Disney Plus Basic is missing some key features available to Premium users. For starters, Disney Plus Basic users won’t be able to download videos for offline viewing, a policy shared by most of the big streamers when it comes to their ad-supported plans.
Also missing from Disney Plus Basic is watch-party functionality, which means Disney’s GroupWatch and Apple’s SharePlay functions aren’t supported. Finally, immersive Dolby Atmos audio isn’t available for Disney Plus Basic at launch, but the feature may arrive on the ad-supported Disney Plus tier at a later date.
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The Price:
Disney Plus with ads costs $8 a month. If you don’t want ads, there is a little bit of a price hike, as the ad-free experience will cost $11 a month. Before the launch of Disney Plus with ads, the service cost $8 a month, so users who have been paying the same amount for months with their ad-free Disney Plus experience will now have to pay extra to avoid the newly added advertisements. Yes, that is a bummer.
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Ad Length:
Depending on what you’re going to watch, you’ll have to watch a series of ad breaks. It’s pretty uniform throughout the service. Movies have no more than four ad breaks, even if the movie is Avengers: Endgame. TV shows typically have three ad breaks throughout each episode. For the most part, it’s all separated relatively evenly throughout the piece of content you’re watching.
Each ad break is either 45 seconds or 60 seconds long. Typically, I saw 45-second ad breaks, which consisted of three 15-second ads. At no point were there any ad breaks longer than 60 seconds, and the vast majority of the ad blocks were a total of 45 seconds. In total, for a TV show episode, you’re watching 2 minutes and 15 seconds of ads to 3 minutes of ads for 30-45 minutes per episode.
For a movie, you’re experiencing 3–4 minutes of ads. It’s straightforward, and there are about half the number of ads on Disney Plus as there are on Netflix.
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Types of Ads:
Much like Netflix’s ad experience, the types of ads you see on Disney Plus aren’t catered to you, as far as I could tell. Throughout the ad blocks I watched, I saw ads for cars, cruise ships, fast food chains, college, eggs, a portable gaming console whose mascot is a mustached plumber, and numerous ads to make sure to talk to your doctor about your child having RSV. It was completely all over the place, which is fine.
Additionally, there was no change in ad content depending on what I was watching. I saw the same types of ads while watching Home Alone that I did while watching Deadpool 2, one of the few rated-R movies on Disney Plus.
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Shows Without Ads:
While movies typically have four ad breaks, we found that various children’s programs had no ads. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Bluey, Spidey and his Amazing Friends, and other programs aimed strictly at children contained zero ad blocks, not even to open the episodes. However, when you step into the realm of family movies—or movies aimed strictly at children—the ads return.
Sorry, you can’t watch a Muppets movie or any of the various Air Bud spinoffs without learning more about a very famous coffee chain.
What Streaming Content Will Come Included with Disney+ With Ads?
While competitors such as Netflix remove some key titles from their “with ads” tiers, Disney Plus Basic offers the full slate of Disney Plus content, including all the streaming content from the Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, and National Geographic brands.
Which Streaming Platforms Is Disney+ Basic Supported On?
You can watch the ad-supported Disney Plus Basic tier on any streaming platform, including Amazon TV, Google Chromecast, and PlayStation and Xbox game consoles. They are key exceptions, however: For now, Disney Plus Basic is not supported on Ruko devices, reportedly due to a contract dispute.
Ruko is known for getting into standoffs with various streaming services; the streamers were involved in a months-long dispute with Amazon over its Fire TV device, and they knocked heads with Google over YouTube TV in 2021. Those skirmishes were ultimately resolved, and we expect that Disney and Ruko will eventually settle their differences. For now, though, Disney Plus Basic won’t work on Ruko streamers (and no, AirPlay isn’t an option, either).
Frequently Asked Questions
Should you switch to Disney Plus Basic?
Except for the four minutes of ads per hour and the inability to download movies and TV shows, it seems there’s no other reason you shouldn’t get a Disney Plus Basic subscription. For $3 less, you still get all the amazing content Disney Plus has to offer and a lot of features that other ad-supported subscription plans don’t even consider.
Sure, ads are always annoying, and they seem to get in the way right when the movie or show you’re watching starts getting good. However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You can still use the break to stretch a bit or do exercises to avoid eye strain.
Disney Plus, with or without ads
In the end, the choice is yours. If you watch Disney+ a couple of times a week, the ads shouldn’t bother you. On the other hand, if you think the ads will spoil your viewing experience, it makes sense to spend the extra $3. Even if you spend the extra bucks, there are other ways to save money on your online subscriptions so you don’t go over your budget.
