After they decided to release “Onward” on digital platforms early in the U.S., Disney is now rewarding Europe during these times of a pandemic by limiting bandwidth? The news follows similar steps by Netflix and YouTube to reduce bandwidth utilization in Europe, and comes just days before Disney+ is scheduled to launch on March 24th in several European countries.
Kevin Mayer, Chairman of Direct-to-Consumer & International at the Walt Disney Corporation said in a statement (via Deadline) that they were responding to a request by the European Union. “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% in all of the markets launching Disney+ on March 24th,” Mayer said. “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.”
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This comes after Netflix made a similar statement earlier this week to reduce bandwidth, though they didn’t specify how it would affect video quality for its users. To make matters worse for those excited to finally watch “The Mandalorian” legally, Disney has decided to delay the launch of its streaming platform in France for 2 weeks, seemingly after requests by the government. “To our French fans, the Disney+ service is coming, but at the request of the French government, we have agreed to postpone the launch until Tuesday, 7 April 2020,” said Mayer.