THB #82: Disney Q1, 2022 & The End of Theatrical

The headline, for me, from the Q1 2022 report from Disney is that the Hulu Average Revenue Per Unit is $12.96. You can buy Hulu for either $7 or $13 without ads. The higher priced buy is a small minority of subs and has only been recently added as an option in the Disney Bundle, bringing that price from $14 to $20.

The extra money in ARPU for this particular Disney product is in advertising. And this brings the monthly revenue for a Hulu sub (a domestic-only product) to more than double that of Disney+. The revenues for Hulu, SVOD only, were $530m a month this quarter vs only $287m from Disney+. In fact, D+ worldwide (w/o Hotstar) made almost exactly as much as the domestic only Hulu SVOD ($532m vs $530m).

Wall Street and media tend to be obsessed with Disney+, because it is The Brand and Hulu is not only not that, but it is domestic only and will likely stay that.

In this era of streaming - Streaming 2.0: The Competition Arrives - everyone is quickly figuring out that advertising is…