NME Music News, Reviews, Videos, Galleries, Tickets and Blogs | NME.COM
Disney+ is set to launch in the UK tomorrow (March 24) with a lower streaming quality than planned due to the coronavirus.
Demand is higher than usual for streaming services at the moment due to many millions staying at home and self-isolating, and the new measure comes to try and deal with the exceptional demand.
Confirming that they’re set to lower bandwidth in order to handle demand, Kevin Mayer of Disney said: “In line with Disney’s longstanding commitment to act responsibly, we are responding to the request of European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton to work together to ensure the smooth functioning of the broadband infrastructure.
“In anticipation of high consumer demand for Disney+, we are proactively instituting measures to lower our overall bandwidth utilisation by at least 25 per cent in all of the markets launching Disney+ on March 24.
“In the coming days, we will be monitoring Internet congestion and working closely with Internet service providers to further reduce bitrates as necessary to ensure they are not overwhelmed by consumer demand. We look forward to the launch of Disney+ and hope it will provide a much-needed respite for families in these challenging and trying times.”
Disney+ follows Netflix in reducing its streaming quality due to the coronavirus, with European Commissioner Thierry Breton saying that streaming services, users and internet providers have a “joint responsibility to take steps to ensure the smooth functioning of the internet during the battle against the virus propagation”.
See a list of every film and TV show that will be available on Disney+ UK here.
The post Disney+ to launch in UK with lower streaming quality due to coronavirus crisis appeared first on NME Music News, Reviews, Videos, Galleries, Tickets and Blogs | NME.COM.
