Disney’s TV Everywhere Apps, For DisneyNow, Freeform, ABC, And FXNOW Are Next To Go

Disney is following Paramount’s lead and shutting down its suite, urging Disney+. It shutters a week before Boomerang.

Play it again Sam! Notices have gone up on the DisneyNow, FXNow, ABC, National Geographic and Freeform apps, with an update announcing that a month from it, on September 23, the apps will shut down on mobile devices and TVs, though the websites would still be operational and allow users to log in with their TV providers to watch full episodes after. At least for now.

Of course, cable on demand services will still run. This is a move obviously intended to send people to Hulu and Disney+. What’s notable is DisneyNOW, which combined the WATCH apps for Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Disney Junior into a single app essentially was Disney+ for the two years between its launch/unification and Disney+’s launch. This was made blatantly obvious when there was a documented exodus of library content the week before Disney+ launched. When then-recentlyish ended Disney Channel shows expired off of Netflix, DisneyNOW would be where they would land. The entire series would be available. I was there. I was elated when it happened with Girl Meets World. Now it’s select seasons. Every day, the new episodes that were to premiere on linear that day, every single one of them, would go up on DisneyNOW very early in the morning. I forget if it was midnight or the early AM hours. But it made for a very memorable DuckTales series finale viewing experience. Let alone it carrying the English dub of Chinese Lilo & Stitch spinoff Stitch & Ai for a time and it never aired linearly in America or made it to Disney+. There were also live feeds of all three channels available.

Many Paramount TV Everywhere Apps Are Shuttering

The ABC app has all of its shows on Hulu and now Disney+, so it kind of makes sense. However it also has livestreams of the Disney suite of well, the non Disney-branded and FAST channels, including both east and west coast feeds for Freeform, FX, FXX and National Geographic. I never downloaded FXNow but I presume they have feeds for FX, FXX, and FX Movie Channel. FIOS doesn’t carry both feeds of each channel either. Not only that, but the ABC app carries the news from the New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, and North Carolina affiliates, giving out of market people their best glimpse of those markets’ news broadcasts without them having to make news through viral moments. It’s also worth noting that in retransmission negotiations Disney allowed Spectrum to drop Freeform and FXX in favor of including free Disney+ Basic instead.

This has been an unfortunate trend this year, as Paramount Global shut down the Noggin streaming service, and the TV Everywhere apps for Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., and Paramount Network, while also combining Nick Jr.’s website into Nickelodeon’s and turning Comedy Central’s surviving video offerings into Paramount+ redirects. Warner Bros. Discovery turned Cartoon Network’s website to direct people toward Max while sparing the channel’s app, and announced three weeks ago that they’ll be shutting down the Boomerang streaming service on September 30, a week after the Disney suite. On the lighter side, the 22 seasons of Pokémon that DisneyNOW carried when the anime aired its Sun and Moon series on Disney XD will now be part of a FAST Channel through a partnership with WildBrain.

'Pokémon' Catches WildBrain To Be Their FAST Channel Partner