Disney CEO Bob Iger had a hot-mic moment during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call for 2024 on Thursday after revealing that around 60% of new streaming subscribers are purchasing ad-supported plans, including 37% in the U.S. and 30% globally.
“I don’t know if I was supposed to disclose those AVOD numbers,” Iger said as the call Q&A moved to the topic of Disney recent closing its $8.5 billion Star India and Viacom18 merger deal with Reliance Industries.
The reveal came after chief financial officer Hugh Johnston told analysts that Disney expects its streaming growth to come from a balance of pricing as well as subscriber growth.
“We’re going to read the market and we can react to it as as it plays out, but our expectation right now is it will be both subs and pricing, a little bit more tilted towards pricing,” Johnston said.
Iger then disclosed the breakdown of ad-supported subscribers and added that the price increase put in place in October was “designed to move more people in the AVOD direction, because we know the ARPU and interest in it from advertisers and streaming has grown.”
The disclosure comes as Netflix recently reported that its ad tier has reached 70 million monthly active users just two years after launch.
While Netflix noted that the offering accounts for over 50% of new sign-ups in 12 countries where the offering is available, it has not broken out how many of its total subscribers are on ad-supported versus ad-free plans.
Shares of Disney surged over 9% during Thursday’s trading session after the release of the quarterly results.
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