Disney to Combine Hulu, Disney+, Launch ESPN Streaming App

As part of its latest quarterly earnings, The Walt Disney Company said it will combine Hulu into Disney+ to create a unified experience. It will also launch a new ESPN streaming service on August 21 with an expanded partnership with the NFL.

“Disney is an entertainment company like no other with a robust portfolio of growth businesses that are seamlessly integrated, supported by a deep library of beloved IP, and enabled with cutting-edge technology,” The firm wrote in its press release announcing the quarter results. “Our streaming business continued to deliver strong results in 03, with growth in Entertainment Direct-to-Consumer profitability, demonstrating the progress we are making to increase our streaming margins and build this business into a core growth driver for the company.”

Among the announcements:

Hulu to be “fully integrated” into Disney+. Now that The Walt Disney Company owns all of Hulu, it is integrating that service and its content into Disney+.

Disney+ results. In Disney’s FY25Q3, Disney+ added 1.8 million subscribers, almost all internationally. The service now has 127.8 million subscribers, Disney says. Overall, Disney now has 183 million subscribers, and its streaming business is profitable, with a net income of $346 million.

Hulu results. Hulu added 900,000 subscribers in the quarter, though the Hulu + Live TV subscriber count declined by 100,000 subscribers, and the total subscriber base is now 55.5 million, of which 51.2 million are non-Live TV subscribers.

ESPN+. Disney’s current sports streaming service, ESPN+, saw no subscriber gains in the quarter, so it still has 24.1 million subscribers. But things are about to change …

ESPN. The new ESPN streaming service will launch in two weeks and offer all of ESPN’s live content to subscribers for the first time. It will cost $29.99 per month, or $35.99 per month in a bundle with Disney+ and Hulu. But the big news is ESPN’s expanded NFL partnership: ESPN is acquiring The NFL Network, giving it access to the Red Zone channel and other key NFL programming. ESPN will also offer a bundle that includes NFL+ Premium, and the NFL is acquiring a 10 percent stake in ESPN.

Disney will also follow in the footsteps of Netflix and stop reporting its subscriber numbers each quarter.

“We believe quarterly updates on the number of paid subscribers… have become less meaningful to evaluating the performance of our businesses, and we will no longer report these metrics starting with the first quarter of fiscal 2026 for Disney+ and Hulu and the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 for ESPN+,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said. “While we will no longer disclose subscribers, we will provide information on Entertainment Direct-to-Consumer profitability.”