Disney appears to have slightly revised the paid subscriber totals it provided for Hulu earlier this month when it announced its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings.
On Nov. 7, Disney CFO Christine McCarthy said that Hulu ended the company’s fourth quarter on Sept. 28 with about 28.5 million paid subscribers. But in a new SEC filing, the company said Hulu ended the quarter with approximately 29 million.
When Hulu reported subscriber numbers in May, it said it had 28 million total subscribers and 26.8 million paid subscribers. In early April during an investor day for its Disney+, Disney said that Hulu was at 25 million subscribers (23 million of those paid).
RELATED: Hulu says it now has 26.8M paid subscribers
It’s unclear how many Hulu subscribers are taking up live TV packages with their subscriptions, but recent analyst estimates suggest that Hulu with Live TV is now the biggest U.S. virtual MVPD in terms of subscribers. According to estimates from media analyst firm MoffettNathanson, Hulu now has 2.7 million live TV subscribers, putting it just slightly ahead of Dish Network’s Sling TV.
Hulu with Live TV is also the most recent vMVPD to raise its prices. At the end of last week, the company announced it will raise the price of its base package by $10, bringing the cost up to $54.99 per month. The price change will kick in on December 18.
“Price changes are never easy to stomach, and we know that many people don’t watch live television year-round, so we’ve made it easy for Hulu subscribers to switch back and forth between our plans to best suit their needs,” Hulu said.
Hulu isn’t the only Disney streaming service that had its subscriber numbers revised. The company said earlier this month that ESPN+ ended the quarter with about 3.4 million paid subscribers, but according to the new annual filing, the service, as of Sept. 28, had about 3 million paid subscribers.