The Disney case as the new king of streaming - and the Netflix case has never lost its crown

Disney has been crowned the new king of streaming after announcing that it now has 221.1 million total subscriptions across Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. That's about 400,000 more than Netflix's second-quarter tally of 220.67 million paying members worldwide.

But is The Walt Disney Company really the new leader in the ongoing streaming wars? An investigation.

Disney's case as the new king of streaming is pretty straightforward

As a company, Disney now offers more streaming subscriptions than Netflix.

Disney+ alone added 14.4 million subscribers in the June quarter, while Netflix lost 970,000 paid subscribers worldwide. (April-June is Netflix's second quarter, but Disney's fiscal third quarter.) Disney+ now has 44.5 million subscribers in the US and Canada and another 49.2 million internationally (excluding Disney+ Hotstar).

Disney+'s Hotstar brand adds an additional 58.4 million subscriptions, bringing total Disney+ subscriptions to 152.1 million, a 31% improvement over the same quarter last year.

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ESPN+ subscriptions jumped 53% from the same quarter last year to 22.8 million; Hulu improved its subscriptions by 8% and now has 46.2 million subscribers. (Of these, 42.2 million subscribers are SVOD-only and 4 million add live TV service.)

Looks nicely cut and dry, right?

44.5 million + 49.2 million + 58.4 million + 22.8 million + 46.2 million = 221.1 million.

221 million > 220.67 million.

And oh yes, ad-supported Disney+ is going to beat Netflix's own AVOD tier in the market by months. The End.

Jason Bateman in "Ozark"

Tina Rowden / Netflix

The end?

Disney's case as the new king of streaming isn't at all simple

Wait a second: but Disney's total tally has three services for Netflix's. It's subscriptions versus subscribers; those signed up for the Disney Bundle – Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu – are therefore triple counted. It's a bit fair, but also a bit unfair.

The middle service (in terms of subscriber count), Hulu, isn't even wholly owned by Disney. Based on their longstanding agreement, until at least January 2024, Comcast will own one-third of Hulu. (Disney got 1/3 of Fox when it bought a sizable share of the company in 2019.) With Hulu's growth slowing and the company's focus on Disney+, Hulu might not even exist in the world anymore. a few years. Or at least it might not even exist under the Disney umbrella.

Hulu's saving grace is its profitability, a number that slumped this quarter but still makes it the Bundle's financial standout. Disney executives said Wednesday they expect Disney+ to reach profitability in 2024 — but it's not there yet and neither is ESPN+. The much older Netflix i...