Hulu was the fastest-growing live TV streaming service in the United States during April, May, and June, Disney CFO Christine McCarthy said yesterday during the company’s third-quarter earnings report, per Cord Cutters News.
Disney’s fiscal year begins in October, making April-June its third quarter. The company would not provide hard numbers on Hulu’s live TV streaming service, so Sling TV may still be the biggest live TV streaming service in the United States with 2.47 million subscribers. Disney announced that Hulu recorded 1.2 million additional paid subscribers, which pushed its live TV and on-demand subscriber count to roughly 28 million.
Hulu could be the second-largest live TV streaming service followed by YouTube TV. Meanwhile, AT&T TV Now (formerly DirecTV Now), Comcast, and Spectrum all posted six-figure subscriber losses in the second quarter of 2019.
The news arrived in tandem with Disney’s announcement that it will offer a Netflix-competing bundle package of its three major streaming services—Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+—for $12.99 a month starting on Nov. 12. This bundle would not include Hulu’s live TV function, which starts at $44.99. Comparatively, Sling TV’s base channel packages start at $25 a month.
While Hulu’s live TV service does have live sports, it does not currently offer NFL Network; adding the channel could further boost the company’s fortunes in the future. For now, football fans will need Amazon Prime or Twitch to stream Thursday Night Football or NFL RedZone—both of which are available as Sling TV add-ons (or via PlayStation Vue).
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