“Disney Plus Loses Subscribers and Removes Content, Expecting Billion-Dollar Writedowns”

Disney Plus lost four million subscribers in the first three months of this year, its second consecutive drop in subscribers, according to Variety. In the last three months of 2022, the streamer lost 2.4 million subscribers.

Disney ended the first quarter of 2023 with 157.8 million subscribers, down from 161.8 million at the end of 2022, helped by a 4.6 million drop on Disney Plus Hotstar and a loss of 300,000 in the US and Canada. However, around 1 million subscribers were added overseas in markets where Hotstar is not used.

During an earnings call, Disney CFO Christine McCarthy revealed that “certain content” will be removed from the company’s streamers, and Disney expects this to result in third-quarter writedowns of between $1.5 billion and $1.8 billion.

Warner Bros. Discovery made headlines for this strategy of removing content, most notably for canceling Batgirl even though the film had already been filmed.

McCarthy also added that “going forward, we intend to produce smaller volumes of content in line with this strategic shift,” though the cuts won’t largely take effect until 2024 as much was already planned for 2023.

The news may come as a bit of a surprise as season 3 of The Mandalorian hit Star Wars premiered in February. This year, Disney Plus will also release Ahsoka, Loki, and Secret Invasion. Kevin Feige has already revealed that after a busy fourth phase of the Marvel MCU, the release rate of Disney Plus series will slow down, which seems to be in line with the new content strategy for Disney Plus.