Disney is reporting another Disney+ subscriber loss for the third quarter, along with price increases for consumers.
The streaming service ended the quarter with 146.1 million global (paid) Disney+ subscribers, which is down from the 157.89 million global subscribers the company had at the end of the second quarter. That’s a loss of over 11 million subscribers from Q2-Q3.
ESPN+ subscribers stayed about the same at 25.2 million while Hulu subscribers grew slightly, with SVOD up .3 million to 44 million and Live TV+ SVOD up 5.3 million to 48.3 million.
During the earnings call, we learned that pricing will increase for the Disney streaming services, which will go into effect on October 12.
Hulu Pricing
- Ad-free Hulu will increase by $3 from $14.99 – $17.99 a month.
- Hulu + Live TV will increase by $7 to $76.99 with ads and $89.99 without ads monthly.
- Hulu with ads will remain at $7.99 a month.
ESPN+ Pricing
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ESPN+ will increase $1.00 from $9.99 to $10.99 or $109.99 yearly.
Disney+ Pricing
- Disney+ without ads will increase from $10.99 to $13.99 a month.
- Disney+ with ads will remain at $7.99 a month.
The new Ad-free Disney+ with Hulu service will be launched at $19.99 while the ad-supported Hulu and Disney+ bundle will remain at $9.99.
Disney is seemingly trying to drive consumers to their ad-supported tiers with price hikes as the ad-supported tiers likely generate more revenue.
During the earnings call, Iger mentioned that 40% of users chose ad supported options. For the company, they get paid twice, once by the subscriber and another time for the ads, which is likely why they didn’t raise those prices.
They also want to drive subscribers to their new Disney+ with Hulu premium service at $19.99. Individually one would pay about $22 separately. Disney is likely hoping the bundle savings will bring people to that new service, likely hoping to boost subscribers to those platforms.
Either way, unless you are using ad-supported Hulu and Disney+ you are paying a lot more for the services.
Hulu + Live TV has doubled in price since Disney took control in 2019.
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