Bob Iger Accidentally Reveals Disney’s Ad-Supported Streaming Subscriber Numbers

Even the best business minds struggle with a hot mic now and again.

Look, “Mute/Unmute” has gotten us all at one time or another. On Thursday, Disney CEO Bob Iger messed up during his company’s fiscal Q4 earnings conference call. Fortunately, what Iger said on a hot mic was not nearly as bad as it could have been — but it did highlight the secrecy of some information he gave out moments earlier.

When asked by a media analyst about the growth in streaming margins and how it breaks down between subscriber growth and pricing increases, Disney CFO Hugh Johnston said it’s both — though probably a bit more the pricing increase than the sub growth.

Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ all raised prices in October, one year after the company’s last streaming price hike.

“It’s not just about raising pricing, it’s about moving consumers to the advertiser-supported side of the streaming platform,” Iger tacked on to Johnston’s remarks. “So right now in the United States, about 60 percent of all new subs are buying our streaming services’ advertising-supported — or AVOD. I think right now it’s 37 percent of the subs in the U.S. are AVOD subs… and 30 percent globally.”

You’ve said too much, Bob.

He continued, “The pricing that we recently put into place, which is increased pricing, was actually designed to move more people in the AVOD direction because we know that the ARPU — and interest in it from advertisers in streaming — has grown.”

(ARPU, or average revenue per user, tends to be highest on streaming plans that are part-subscription fee, part-advertising revenue.)

It turns out the details may not have been intended for the public.

“I don’t know if I was supposed to disclose those AVOD numbers,” Iger said into an un-muted mic one question later, when Johnston was speaking about the company’s sale of assets in India. It was an unmissable unintended moment — that, or Iger is playing chess to our checkers. (But probably not.)

To be clear, Iger didn’t quite give away the Coca-Cola secret recipe here. Some of his competitors share similar numbers — and even on purpose. So he’ll probably be OK; either way, Iger intends to retire (again) at the end of 2026. Disney’s board, now led by James Gorman, expects to announce his new successor in early 2026.

IndieWire reached out to Disney corporate to clarify if Iger’s percentages referred to Disney+ only or to the combination of Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, each of which have ad-supported tiers. Though we have not immediately received a response, we are operating under the assumption that those numbers pertain to the latter — the company’s larger streaming ecosystem.

One faux pas aside, Disney had a very good final quarter to its fiscal year. “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine” dominated at the box office, and Disney+ added 4.4 million subscribers. Read all of the earnings details here.