Hulu started 2023 with 4.5 million live TV subscribers, a slight increase on the quarter and year before. While the number suggests Hulu is maintaining its live TV subscriber base, it also suggests the live TV streaming service is struggling to attract new users in great numbers.
Hulu Live TV had around 4.3 million live TV subscribers at the start of 2022. The service then took a hit in the first quarter of 2023 after dropping down to 4.1 million subscribers. Since then Hulu has continued to build back up the subscriber base and was delivering live TV to roughly 4.4 million by November.
Hulu Live TV officially finished the fourth calendar quarter and 2022 as a whole with 4.5 million subscribers, according to The Walt Disney Company’s fiscal first quarter 2023 financial results (PDF). This represents a 100,000 increase on the previous quarter and an increase of 200,000 subscribers when compared to the end of 2021.
The earnings report also confirmed that Hulu finished the year with 43.5 million basic Hulu subscribers. As a result, Hulu ended 2022 with a total number of 48 million SVOD and live TV subscribers. This is an increase of almost one million when compared to the previous quarter (47.2 million), and an increase of almost three million when compared to the 45.3 million reported at the end of 2021.
In addition, Disney also reported an $87.90 average monthly revenue per paid subscriber for live TV subscribers during the fourth calendar quarter of 2022, up from $86.77 in the quarter before.
While the fourth quarter didn’t result in a price increase for the base live TV plan, Hulu did make a change by removing ad-free Disney Plus and replacing it with an ad-supported version. For those that wanted to remain on the ad-free plan, they would have seen an increase on their monthly bill, which likely further helped to increase the average monthly revenue per paid subscriber.
