Disney Leaked Deck Reveals 500 Daily Vertical Clips and Free Tier Plans

By Amara Osei

Disney plans to upload 500 new vertical video clips per day on Disney+ by early April and launch a free tier with always-on FAST channels, according to screenshots of an internal presentation viewed by Business Insider.

The leaked slide deck lays out the streamer's priorities for the 2027 fiscal year, which began in October. Tech executives, including VP of product management Dave Lindsay, unveiled the strategy at an employee town hall late last week. Some staff also pressed management there for details on a possible next round of layoffs.

The deck offers one of the clearest views yet into CEO Josh D'Amaro's plan to make Disney+ the "digital centerpiece" of the company while competing with paid streamers, YouTube, and social media. The stakes are measurable. Nielsen put Disney's streamers at 4.8% of US TV viewership in August — behind YouTube at 15.8% and Netflix at 7.7%, but more than double the share of Paramount+ and Peacock.

What's on the Disney+ road map?

The presentation lists four headline items for the year ahead:

• Ramping up to 500 new vertical clips per day, with creator content arriving in early 2027
• A free tier featuring always-on FAST channels and content sampling
• 4K livestreaming for the Super Bowl
• Fully unifying Disney+ and Hulu into a single app

How fast will the short-form push move?

Disney is starting this quarter with a goal of about 150 vertical clips a day, according to the slide deck. It wants to hit 500 per day by the end of next quarter, which concludes in early April.

Like other Hollywood giants, Disney is betting on short video to pull in younger viewers who live on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. The company plans to add "new content types every quarter," the presentation said, including sports clips, news, and short-form "micro series" such as micro dramas.

Creator content is slated to arrive starting next quarter. Disney already announced a deal with TikTok in early August that would place a curated feed of user-generated content on the streamer.

What would a free Disney+ tier look like?

The forthcoming free offering — which Business Insider first reported on in July — appears several times in the deck. It references a "Free Plan" and "the free experience," including "FAST channel creation" and "content sampling."

FAST channels are free, advertising-supported, always-on feeds popularized by Pluto TV and The Roku Channel. Disney+ already runs a few always-on channels for paid subscribers, including ones for Disney princesses and Pixar films, where viewers join programming mid-stream rather than starting on demand.

"Sampling" means making some Disney+ content available without a subscription, as Business Insider previously reported. Disney isn't alone: Paramount+ is among the media giants weighing free tiers as audiences flock to Tubi and YouTube while subscription prices climb.

Can Disney+ handle the Super Bowl?

Disney+ will livestream the Super Bowl in the US for the first time in mid-February, an event the presentation calls a major "tentpole" moment. Peacock, Paramount+, and Tubi have previously streamed Super Bowl coverage from NBC, CBS, and Fox respectively.

The deck lists Disney's livestreaming priorities as "live 4K HDR, lower latency, scale, live event monitoring and live content security" — a formula for delivering lag-free, piracy-protected picture to millions of viewers.

Where does the Hulu merger stand?

Disney continues merging Hulu into Disney+ under a multi-phase plan known internally as "Project Gemini." The yearslong effort will "deepen engagement" and "increase lifetime fan value," D'Amaro said in August.

The presentation sets no target date for full integration, but its road map schedules "One App Milestones" through Disney's fiscal fourth quarter, running from early July to early October. Business Insider reported in May that Project Gemini had been scheduled to conclude by the end of 2026.

The merger feeds Disney's larger ambition: a super app where users play games and buy merchandise without leaving the streamer. D'Amaro told employees in August that an interactive experience should increase viewing time and reduce cancellations, while shopping features could drive revenue across Disney's other businesses. He said Disney planned to "introduce elements of this expanded ecosystem" in the spring.

If the 500-clips-per-day target and the free tier both land on schedule, Disney will enter fiscal 2028 competing directly for the YouTube audience it currently trails by more than 10 percentage points of TV time.