Big Idea Brief
Our group shares a common interest in television and media, consuming hours each week in our free time. As regular users of streaming platforms, we wanted to learn more about how entertainment today is organized and what influences audience viewing choices. Each of us enjoys Disney+, which is a widely trusted, family-friendly platform. Disney’s emphasis on safe, reliable content increases the need for clear categorization and transparency. Within our dataset, the ratings of over 1,000 Disney+ titles are offered alongside key attributes such as duration, descriptions, genre, and release year. These variables help showcase how content is structured on the platform and how that structure may shape the way audiences select what to watch.
The primary audience of this dataset are parents and media professionals. These individuals are responsible for selecting or evaluating viewing content, mainly concerned with safety and clarity of ratings. Specifically, parents face many challenges having to navigate the choices on platforms like Disney+. They want to make quick, confident decisions without needing to pre-watch every film individually. They also must ensure the content that they’re presenting meets their parental standards. This data will help aid in quick filtering to reduce any uncertainty since ratings and inclusions are clearly outlined to easily comprehend.
Businesses and media professionals today, such as Common Sense Media, also represent a key audience for this information. For example, The Chief Content Officer at Common Sense Media, Jill Murphy, contributes daily to evaluating and communicating content for the public. Individuals in these roles focus on consistently applying these ratings throughout their platforms. Any unclear or inconsistent labeling can make it harder for families and viewers to effectively utilize streaming platforms, decreasing viewers’ trust and interest if content does not align with their portrayed image. Therefore, this data helps media professionals by providing clear and organized information so viewers can make informed entertainment decisions.
This dataset provides a detailed view of how Disney+ content is classified. Key attributes such as genre, duration, release year, and descriptions for over 1,000 titles help audiences break down a large catalogue into understandable categories. Being able to understand the influence of these factors allows us to see how entertainment has evolved over time and if aspects like show/movie ratings have evolved. These variables make it easier for audiences to evaluate content without needing to investigate each option individually.
Structured information helps any viewer navigate platforms like Disney+ quickly. However, specifically for parents, defined ratings help these individuals connect with the content that matches their child’s maturity level and interests. For media professionals, it provides a way to evaluate whether streaming platforms are consistently and effectively communicating content classifications. In general, this data set allows Disney+ users to understand how well the platform aids in this function, how ratings have changed, and whether improvements could be made regarding organization and presentation.
By examining how ratings and key attributes are portrayed, this approach helps guide the analysis toward understanding how streaming platforms like Disney+ can better support clearer decision-making efforts for all viewers, specifically primary audiences like parents and media professionals.
Ratings and Release Year
Ratings for entertainment are separated into two categories: No “TV” labels refers to movies and those with “TV” labels indicate television shows. For the youngest of audience members, TV-Y is used whereas TV-Y7 represents viewers ages 7 and older. TV-G includes general audiences containing little to no violence or strong language. TV-PG suggests parental guidance and TV-14 is the most mature rating offered on Disney+. As for movies, Disney+ ratings range from G (general audiences) to the most mature being PG-13. G-rated films peaked in 2003, 2008, and 2011 with 12 films each. PG-rated movies are less common, with the highest being 12 films in 2020. On Disney+, TV-PG is the most common rating with 50 titles in 2021 alone.
As indicated in the visualization, there has been an increase in production of mature content on Disney+. For example, TV-14 ratings only had one film in the year 1998, then jumped to 28 films in 2021. While Disney+ remains a family-friendly platform, it is expanding towards a broader audience. The rise in production of TV-PG and TV-14 ratings reflects a more complex library, requiring clear labeling and active filtering. Parents today must pay closer attention to ratings within this platform when selecting entertainment for their children, due to this shift. For media professionals, Disney+ has become a more diverse streaming service, no longer solely centered around younger audiences but evolving to fit various age groups.
TV Ratings
TV-PG is the highest offered rating on Disney+ with 120 titles in total. TV-Y7 and TV-G follow close behind. The platform’s library revolves around entertainment that requires a level of parental guidance for viewing.
This indicates that Disney+ is clearly not strictly a children’s platform, even though safe options are still widely accessible. Their TV content leans towards being moderately mature.
Movie Ratings
The G, PG, and PG-13 ratings are offered for movies within the Disney+ platform. Similarly to patterns seen in the television shows, Disney+ has the highest number of films in a more mature category. The G (general audience) category is the highest with 253 films. Each of these ratings involves some level of parental guidance required. Even G-rated films are suitable for a wide range of ages, not exclusively just for children or adults.
For our audiences, these visualizations shows how Disney+ continues to offer family-friendly movies while also showcasing movies of various maturity levels. Parents can use these ratings to guide film selections whereas media professionals can use it to recognize Disney+’s emphasis on providing content for a variety of viewers. Seeing that most of the platforms films are in more mature categories, viewers are required to use caution regarding their entertainment, especially when choosing films for younger children.
Tv Shows and Movies Ratings
The packed circled chart helps to clearly compare the range of ratings between the movies and TV shows offered on Disney+. Both of the large circles separate the entertainment type, while the smaller circles showcase ratings from the dataset. The size of the circles represents the number of films within each rating. For the movie category, G and PG are of the highest with a strong focus on more generalized yet family-oriented content. As for TV shows, TV-PG is the largest category, with TV-Y7 and TV-G following. This showcases a wider age range of TV programs.
The packed circles chart provides a comprehensible visualization for parents, professionals, and general viewers. While movies are more consistent with family-friendly content, TV shows offer more variety.
This pie chart provides another perspective to visualize the comparison in ratings of TV shows and movies on Disney+. In general, G (253) and PG (235) make up the largest portions, followed closely by TV-G (233). The platform’s shift towards more general content can appeal to families as well as viewers of many varying ages. TV-PG (181) also represents a large portion of the chart, confirming Disney’s appropriation for a wide selection of audiences.
While there are some more mature options, parents and general viewers can utilize this visualization to view the top three ratings for TV and top three for movies on the platform. It reinforces Disney+’s content strategy of prioritizing broadly accessible programming while still offering some variety in maturity levels.
Description Words
The word cloud highlights the most commonly used terms within Disney+ movie and show descriptions. The largest and most commonly used words include “friends,” “family,” “young,” and “adventure,” reflecting the platform’s continued reliability for family-oriented content. These recurring terms emphasize themes of exploration, love, and safety, which align with Disney’s brand image. Also visible are words such as “music,” “scientists,” and “Christmas,” indicating the platform’s diverse offerings for viewers of all backgrounds.
This reinforces Disney+ as a safe choice for those seeking content with positive themes. It demonstrates how Disney+ consistently uses descriptive language that supports its identity as a friendly streaming service, while still serving a broad audience through universal and accessible themes.
Duration and Release Year
The line chart comparing release year with show and movie durations on Disney+ showcases a noticeable jump in average runtime over the years. The year 1992 has the highest average duration with about 102 minutes. However the most recent year on the data-set, 2021, reflected a drop to about 46.6 minutes. This shift in duration reflects a change in the content type as well as the rise of streaming services such as Disney+ in popularity.
In earlier years, Disney primarily focused on theatrical films and cartoons which typically are longer in length. Today, Disney+ rivals platforms like Netflix and Hulu, shifting their content to reflect more episode style productions that viewers can watch in one sitting or on the go. Shorter, binge-able TV series have become more common. For our primary audience, this indicates a move toward more flexible viewing choices that fit into daily routines. For media professionals, it showcases a transition within the industry towards more streaming centered content, where series play a bigger role than traditional films.
As a whole, this data-set provides a clear overview of how ratings have grown to become more mature, even on platforms like Disney. Additionally, it outlines distinct characteristics of Disney’s iconic films to help parents, professionals, and general users navigate options efficiently, carefully, and successfully.