Report: Disney Lost 1.7 Million Subs During Kimmel Suspension

During the five days between Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension on September 17 and his reinstatement on September 23, Disney lost 1.7 million subscribers across its three streaming services: Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN.

That’s according to Marisa Kabas at The Handbasket, who says a Disney source confirmed the numbers.

While 1.7 million is a relatively small fraction of the total 207 million subscribers the company reported in August, according to another report, the churn rate for Disney+ and Hulu during Kimmel’s hiatus was nearly six times higher than the period before.

The losses land at a sensitive time for Disney. In its Q3 fiscal quarter, the company reported a gain of 2.6 million subscribers across its streaming services, and it told investors in August it expected to add 10 million more by the end of the current quarter. Even a temporary surge of cancellations cuts against that narrative of growth.

The cancellations coincided with the rise of the #CancelDisneyPlus movement on social media, where Kimmel’s suspension was frequently invoked as a reason to abandon Disney-owned platforms. Online campaigns don’t always lead to measurable results, but in this case the timing of the backlash and the surge in churn suggest the hashtag had real-world impact.

Disney hasn’t officially commented on whether cancelled subscriptions played a role in its decision to reinstate Kimmel last Monday even without the two station groups that precipitated his suspension on board. But Kimmel himself winked at the situation in his first monologue back, pretending to read a corporate-mandated statement that turned out to be instructions for reactivating Disney+ and Hulu accounts.