Disney has even bigger bundle now. Starting next month, subscribers of Hulu’s Live TV service will also get access to Disney’s two other streaming services Disney+ and ESPN+ for an increased monthly fee.
The changes will take affect on Dec. 21.
Hulu + Live TV (ad-supported) will be to $69.99/month and Hulu (No Ads) + Live TV will be $75.99/month. That’s a $5 increase on both. It’s still a pretty good deal: On their own, Disney+ costs $8 a month and ESPN+ $5 a month. Those two and the SVOD version of Hulu (i.e. without the live TV aspect) can also be bundled together for $20 a month.
Hulu has around 4 million subscribers to its Live TV service and more than 44 million in total. Those who pay for the Live TV service get all the SVOD content as well.
Disney is looking to beef up subscribers for its streaming services, particularly Disney+ which has seen its growth stall out a bit. Disney+ added only 2 million new subscribers during its most recent quarter and now stands at 118 million as of the end of September.
That was well below Wall Street’s forecast of around 126 million and was the slowest quarterly growth since the service launched in 2019. In September, CEO Bob Chapek warned that growth would slow and would only increase by “low single-digit millions,” citing a production slowdown caused by the ongoing pandemic.
Between all of its streaming services, including Hulu and ESPN+, Disney now counts 179 million total subscribers. ESPN+ had the biggest quarterly increase with 2.3 million subscribers, pushing its total above 17 million.