ABC’s decision last month to cancel Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show led to a surge in cancellations of Disney+ and Hulu streaming services by consumers outraged by the move. However, data released Monday showed that both services saw steady growth in enrollment during September, helping to offset the number of people who stopped signing up.
On September 17, ABC aired “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Activity will be suspended “indefinitely”. The comment comes after the host said on his show two days ago that the “MAGA gang” was trying to score political points over the suspect accused of murdering conservative activist Kirk, sparking outrage on the right and prompting two major ABC affiliates, Nexstar and Sinclair, to announce they would preempt Kimmel. Disney reinstated Kimmel on Tuesday, September 23, and despite boycotts from Sinclair and Nexstar, the show set television ratings that ranked among the highest-rated episodes of all time.
Kimmel’s shutdown of ABC prompted a wave of consumers who canceled (or threatened to cancel) Hulu and Disney+. Additionally, according to research firm Antenna, the average cancellation rate for Disney+ in the US in September 2025 is 8%, double the expected 4% for the previous two months. Similarly, Hulu’s cancellation rate for the month was 10%, double the previous two months’ 5%. According to Antenna, the industry-weighted average cancellation rate for nine premium services (Apple TV+, Discovery+, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, Paramount+, Peacock, and Starz) was 7% in September.
That said, Disney+ and Hulu both had above-average subscriber numbers in September, according to Antenna. According to Antenna estimates, Disney+ had 2.18 million new subscribers (compared to 1.99 million in August and 1.65 million in July), while Hulu had 2.11 million (compared to 1.97 million and 1.73 million). Additionally, Disney+ and Hulu’s September total additions each had a market share of 14% (down compared to August, but up compared to July).
There is one important caveat. Antenna’s approach does not incorporate Disney’s wholesale business, including its distribution agreement with Charter. Additionally, the published antenna data does not reveal whether consumers who “cancel” did so as part of switching, upgrading, or downgrading their streaming plans.
Another context note on antenna data: Disney announced price increases for most Disney+ and Hulu streaming plans and bundles on September 23rd, which naturally would have contributed to higher-than-usual cancellation numbers.
Disney said during its June quarterly earnings call that it expected total Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions to increase by more than 10 million, primarily due to the company’s charter expansion, but that was before the Kimmel scandal.
It’s unclear what the final net additions for Disney+ and Hulu were in September, as they are not categories that Antenna tracks. But the increase in sign-ups clearly would have helped alleviate the cancellations the Disney-owned streamer had seen that month.
As of the end of June, Disney+ had 128 million core subscribers, an increase of 1.8 million from the previous quarter. Hulu’s subscribers reached 55.5 million, a net increase of 800,000.
Disney will follow the lead of Netflix and others in discontinuing reporting subscriber numbers for its streaming services Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, saying the metric is “no longer meaningful in evaluating our business performance.” The Company will cease reporting subscriptions and ARPU for Disney+ and Hulu as of the first quarter of fiscal 2026 (the last three months of calendar year 2025) and will cease reporting metrics for ESPN+ as of the September 2025 quarter. The company plans to announce its financial results for September 2025 on November 13, after the market closes.
New York-based Antenna said its estimates are based on records of millions of raw permission-based consumer opt-in transactions obtained from various partners. Data includes digital purchase and cancellation receipts, consumer subscription signals, and credit, debit, and banking data. Antenna says it cleans and models the raw data, then weighs the panels to correct for demographic and behavioral biases.
