Hulu adds 600K Subscribers to Raise Total to 46.2M; Live Streaming Subs Continue to Decline

The latest Disney earnings report was released on Wednesday and it provides insight into the various different arms of the entertainment juggernaut’s business.

On the streaming front, the report indicates that Hulu’s SVOD service had 42.2 million subscribers as of the end of June, up 800K subscribers on the quarter. The company ended the quarter with 4 million Hulu + Live TV customers, which lost 100K subscribers in Q3 2022.

In total, Hulu now has 46.2 million subscribers, representing a year-over-year increase of 3.2M subs (8%) and an increase of 700,000 customers from the previous quarter. For its live TV streaming service, Hulu saw a decline of 100K subscribers in the quarter to come in at a total of 4M. That still represents a year-over-year gain of 8% or 300K customers

Hulu’s corporate sibling streamer Disney+ added 14.4 million subscribers during the quarter to jump up to 152M worldwide. Disney’s sports-focused streamer ESPN+ increased its customer base by half-a-million subscribers, representing 53% year-over-year growth.

Not accounting for overlap thanks to the Disney Bundle, Disney’s streaming service have 221.1 million customers. For comparison, at the end of the second quarter, Netflix reported having 220.67 million subscribers, keeping it far and away the largest subscription streaming service in the world. Last week, Warner Bros. Discovery reported that HBO Max and discovery+ had a combined 92.1 million subscribers. As part of Paramount’s earnings update, Paramount+ reported having 43M global subscribers thanks to an increase of 5.2M by the end of Q2. Neither Prime Video nor Apple TV+ report subscriber totals.

The quarter brought a number of changes for the general entertainment streamer. In an effort to bolster its own streaming service, NBCUniversal first moved all of its Bravo day-after-it-airs programming away from Hulu and over to Peacock. The rest of NBCU’s programming will stream on Peacock the day after it airs beginning in the fall.

Despite the loss of the unscripted staples, it wasn’t all bad news for the streamer in terms of shifting content as Hulu will become the streaming home of beloved, Emmy-winning comedy “Schitt’s Creek” starting in October. The series is currently available to stream on Netflix, at least for the next few weeks.

However, as Disney continues to shift more of its content away from ABC and Hulu and over to Disney+, many analysts have wondered what the future is for the streamer. Some have advocated for Disney to sell its two-third controlling interest, while others have assumed that Disney will eventually merge the platform with Disney+ — like it is in nearly all international markets — once its deal with Comcast allows.

On the user experience side of things, last quarter, Hulu added SharePlay support to allow friends and family to co-view a streaming title via various Apple devices.