Atmosphere at the Disney Bundle celebrating National Streaming Day at The Row on May 19, 2022 in Los Angeles.
Presley Ann | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
disney announced Wednesday that it has an estimated 157 million monthly active users worldwide who watch ad-supported content across its streaming platforms (Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+).
This number includes 112 million domestic users and is the monthly average over the past six months.
While traditional television stations have standard methods for measuring ratings and viewership, there is still no industry standard methodology for measuring global streaming advertising viewership.
The company said Disney’s advertising division “has begun to define a globally consistent approach and methodology for estimating ad-supported viewership.” The company will provide updates and further insights into its ad-supported streaming business during CES, the annual technology conference in Las Vegas, a must-see event for the advertising and media industry.
“Disney is at the intersection of world-class sports and entertainment content and has the most valuable audience in massive, ad-supported global streaming,” Rita Ferro, Disney’s president of global advertising, said in a news release. said. “We wanted to be the first company to bring transparency to the industry about the methodology used to estimate the number of monthly active users worldwide supported by advertising.”
In an explanation of its methodology, the company said the metric was derived from active accounts across Disney’s three streaming services that watched an ad-supported show or movie for at least 10 consecutive seconds. “Each active account is multiplied by the estimated number of users per account to estimate the total number of users,” the company said. Estimated active users are added across apps without deduplication, so users who are registered on multiple platforms may be counted multiple times.
Increase in ad-supported tiers
Media companies have become particularly focused on generating profits from their streaming businesses, and advertising has become a key means of doing so. Although many platforms were originally commercial-free subscription services, streaming platforms in recent years have introduced cheaper ad-supported tiers for consumers.
Disney CEO Bob Iger said the company is trying to drive customers to ad-supported tiers. The company has been increasing the price of its commercial-free option since launching ad-supported Disney+ in late 2022.
Disney’s Hulu was one of the first streaming platforms to offer an ad-supported option. Disney+ recently introduced an ad-supported tier.
Disney announced in November that it had 122.7 million Disney+ Core subscribers in India and other regional countries, excluding Disney+ Hotstar. Hulu had 52 million subscribers and ESPN+ had 25.6 million paid subscribers.
The company has not previously reported exactly how many subscribers pay for ad-supported options on each platform, but executives said on a November earnings call that more than half of new Disney+ subscribers in the U.S. It said it was opting for a cheaper ad-supported tier, adding that this “bodes well for the future.”
Disney noted during the conference call that average revenue per user for domestic Disney+ customers fell from $7.74 to $7.70. This is due to an increase in the proportion of customers in cheaper advertised tiers and wholesale services.
Executives also said in November that they believe streaming will be a “key growth area” for the company.
At the time, the company reported operating income of $321 million for the September period, which included its streaming business, which includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, compared with a loss of $387 million in the same period a year earlier.
Disney is scheduled to announce its first quarter results before the bell on February 5th.
