Everything You Need to Know About Disney+ Star

Need another excuse to stream?

Today marks the launch of Disney+’s new channel Disney+ Star, bringing with it a bunch of series and films from Fox, Hulu, The Walt Disney Company and America’s ABC Network.

The new service will be the home for a whole lot of classic shows and films that were previously a little too grown-up for Disney+’s original target audience. It’s essentially considered the company’s new ‘general entertainment’ channel.

From today (if you pay for Disney+) you can stream cult faves like Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives, Bob’s Burgers and Love, Victor. 

So, here’s a little bit about how it works and what you can expect.

How is Disney+ Star different from Disney+?

Although Disney+ Star will be housed in the original Disney+ app, it isn’t exactly the same service; it’s a whole separate channel.

As previously mentioned, it will be home to titles that were a little too adult for Disney+’s audience.

In the US, the streaming service Hulu is owned by Disney and already streams more mature content to audiences in America. But unfortunately, as Hulu is only available in the US, Disney+ had to come up with another way to get this content to reach international audiences.

Not only does this save Disney the pain of rolling out another streaming service to Aussies but it also saves audiences' wallets by not forcing them to pay for another service.

Star is also a unique service to some countries including Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Canada, Western Europe and Singapore, with plans to launch in Eastern Europe, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and other parts of South East Asia in late 2021.

For audiences that get Star, it will appear on their Disney+ homepage just like Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and National Geographic already do.

The new Star tab will also come with updated parental controls to help adults and young people accurately navigate the content.

Do I need to pay more to get Disney+ Star?

Yes and no. Essentially, you don’t have to buy and subscribe to a whole new service. If you already pay for Disney+ you will automatically get the new Star tab on your app from today.

However, Disney plans to slightly increase the cost of the Disney+ subscription in the UK and Australia to account for all of the extra content. So yes, technically you will be paying for it.

In Australia, the cost will go from $8.99 per month to $11.99 per month, and from $89.99 per year to $119.99 annually.

Don’t stress just yet though 'cos if you have already paid for a yearly subscription, you won’t pay any higher rates until your account relapses.

What’s coming to the channel? 

The full list of titles coming to Disney+ Star is just a little bit too long to recount here, but you can expect some big fan favourites like Family Guy, Love, Victor, Big Sky, Deadpool, the Alien franchise and Black-ish.

You’ll also get access to all of the American Horror Story seasons, How I Met Your Mother (big yay), and Cougar Town.

You can find, and search through the full list of titles here. 

At the moment, the list only includes existing shows and films but Disney Plus UK has plans to start introducing brand-new originals for the channel. Fingers-crossed they also make their way to Aussie screens.

You can subscribe to Disney+ here. (Affiliate disclosure: Student Edge may earn a commission if you click that link and buy a product from our partner’s page.)

Header Image: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images