{"id":180403,"date":"2025-09-30T16:16:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T16:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/180403\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T16:16:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T16:16:12","slug":"disney-lost-1-7million-subscribers-after-suspending-jimmy-kimmel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/180403\/","title":{"rendered":"Disney lost 1.7million subscribers after suspending Jimmy Kimmel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Disney<\/a> reportedly lost 1.7million subscribers after Jimmy Kimmel Live! was suspended due to comments relating to the murder of Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n

ABC, which is owned by Disney, suspended the late night talk show, which has run since 2003, on September 17 after comments made by the TV host following Kirk\u2019s death<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kirk was shot in the neck and killed<\/a> at Utah Valley University\u2019s campus on September 10, and, following the incident, Kimmel suggested that the signs pointed to Kirk\u2019s shooter being a Donald Trump<\/a> supporter.<\/p>\n

Returning to his show last week (September 23), Kimmel addressed his comments regarding the shooting of Kirk, saying he never intended to \u201cmake light\u201d of the murder<\/a>, but stopped short of apologising for them. He also directed criticism at the President, whom he claimed \u201cwants to see me and hundreds of people who work here fired\u201d.<\/p>\n

SCOOP \/ UPDATE \u2014 Disney saw more than 1.7 million total paid streaming cancelations during the period 9\/17-9\/23, a Disney source confirms to me. The total includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social)<\/a> 2025-09-29T17:19:55.663Z<\/a><\/p>\n

According to The New York Times<\/a>, the TV host\u2019s return drew 6.2million viewers \u2013 nearly four times the usual audience, despite 20 per cent of ABC\u2019s network affiliates refusing to air the episode<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, according to Marisa Kabas, founder of the newsletter The Handbasket<\/a>, more than 1.7million subscribers cancelled their subscription to Disney+, Hulu and ESPN during the period Kimmel was off air.<\/p>\n

Fellow TV host Stephen Colbert<\/a> also made similar comments last week, claiming that<\/a> \u201cafter Kimmel was suspended, Google searches for \u2018cancel Disney+\u2019 and \u2018cancel Hulu\u2019 spiked\u201d.<\/p>\n

NME has reached out to Disney for comment on Kabas\u2019 claims.<\/p>\n

Kabas also claims that Disney were due to announce price increases for the streaming service, which \u201cmay have hastened the ABC parent company\u2019s major decision to bring Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s late night talk show back on air\u201d.<\/p>\n

The same day Kimmel went back on air, Disney (via The Guardian<\/a>) announced the cost of a Disney+ and Hulu package will increase from $10.99 (\u00a38) to $12.99 (\u00a39.66) in the US, while an ad-free plan with both will still cost $19.99 (\u00a314.86) from October 21. Plans with Disney+, Hulu and ESPN, with ads, which were previously $16.99 (\u00a312.63), will also rise to $19.99.<\/p>\n

Despite this, a company spokesperson told Bloomberg<\/a>\u00a0that the price increases were planned for months and unrelated to the Kimmel controversy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Disney reportedly lost 1.7million subscribers after Jimmy Kimmel Live! was suspended due to comments relating to the murder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,2490,134,427],"class_list":["post-180403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}