This week, Disney is attending the 5th annual Tech and Data Showcase at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and its Disney Advertising division has revealed details of how many ad-supported subscribers it has across its streaming services, including Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, worldwide.

President of Global Advertising, Rita Ferro, revealed that Disney’s ad-supported monthly active users have reached an estimated 157 million globally, including 112 million domestically, on average per month over the last six months.  These details don’t include subscribers from Disney+ Hotstar.   Rita said in a statement regarding this news:

“Disney sits at the intersection of world class sports and entertainment content, with the most high-value audiences in ad-supported global streaming at scale.  We wanted to be the first to offer our industry greater transparency into the methodology used to estimate our engaged global ad-supported monthly active users.”

Additional details revealed include:

• Unlike linear advertising, there is no industry standard methodology for measuring global streaming advertising audience size.
• Disney Advertising set out to define a globally consistent approach and methodology to estimate ad-supported audience numbers. 
• The ad-supported MAU numbers are derived from active accounts across Disney’s streaming ecosystem (Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+)* who have viewed ad-supported content continuously for more than 10 seconds.
• Each active account is then multiplied by the number of estimated users per account (global average is 2.6 and it varies by application and region) to estimate the total number of users. 
• Multipliers are determined by first-party survey data representing subscribers in regions with an advertising tier.** This survey includes more than 13,000 individuals ages 18-64.
• As an advertising industry leader focused on proving the power of our data, this is another step that delivers intentional and impactful results for brands – in a uniquely Disney way. 

There was also an interesting note at the very bottom of the press release stating that Disney might not reveal any more data in the future regarding the number of ad-supported subscribers they have:

“We do not assume any obligation to publicly provide revisions or updates to the information provided herein.”

Roger’s Take:  Disney is trying to build up its ad-supported tiers of Disney+ and Hulu, so putting out this information is purely being done to try to encourage more advertisers and help boost the stock price.  This information isn’t really necessarily for the public, but it’s important for people to realise that advertising is how the streaming services are going to replace their lost revenue from the collapse of linear television. 

The idea of low-cost streaming services with no advertising was never sustainable, and Disney, along with the other major studios, are all generally increasing the cost of their ad-free tiers to encourage both new and existing subscribers to take out the lower-priced ad-supported tier since they make more money that way.

Are you subscribed to the ad-supported tier of Disney+ and Hulu?  Let me know on social media!

Roger Palmer

Roger has been a Disney fan since he was a kid and this interest has grown over the years. He has visited Disney Parks around the globe and has a vast collection of Disney movies and collectibles. He is the owner of What's On Disney Plus & DisKingdom. Email: Roger@WhatsOnDisneyPlus.com Twitter: Twitter.com/RogPalmerUK Facebook: Facebook.com/rogpalmeruk

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