DISNEY’S NEW ONLINE streaming service will launch in Ireland on 24 March, with seasons 1-30 of The Simpsons among the shows available on the platform. 

Disney+ is the entertainment behemoth’s rival to Netflix, Amazon Prime and Apple and will cost Irish subscribers €6.99 per month, or €69.99 for an annual subscription.

Disney is banking on its long back-catalogue to tempt subscribers into signing up. It launches in Ireland with more than 500 films and more than 350 series. 

As well as the expected Disney cartoon classics, productions from Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic are all on the Disney+ platform. 

The first live-action Star Wars series The Mandalorian is perhaps the most hyped addition to Disney+. 

Disney bought 20th Century Fox last year in a deal valued at over $70 billion, meaning over 600 episodes of The Simpsons are also available to stream.

In the past week, it’s been announced that Disney+ would be made available to purchase for Irish users of Sky Q and Amazon Fire. 

The European launch in three weeks also includes Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

Other countries will be added “this summer,” including Belgium, Portugal and in Scandinavia, it said.

Disney jumped into the hotly-contested streaming market with a splash last November, when it racked up 10 million subscribers within 24 hours of going live in the US, Canada and the Netherlands.

Since then it has launched in Australia, New Zealand and Puerto Rico, with analysts estimating it now has several tens of millions of clients.

- With reporting by © – AFP 2020