I spent my two-week vacation compiling annual streaming viewership summaries in the U.S. for the Patreon shop, and while doing so, I realized that Disney+ films and series have been ranking lower and lower in the charts over the years. That gave me the idea to take a broader look at the trend in a more detailed article. Earlier this year, I published a study on the struggles of Marvel and Star Wars series and films on Disney+, which you can read here, and as we’ll see, the two are closely connected.

Let’s not beat around the bush: there has indeed been a very noticeable drop in viewership on Disney+. I can only analyze this decline through the lens of U.S. Nielsen data, with all the gaps and limitations that come with it, but that won’t stop us from taking a closer look at the issue.

I started by looking at the five most-watched films on Disney+ during their first 14 days of release for each year between 2021 and the first nine months of 2025, and then calculating the average. It’s an imperfect indicator, but it highlights the impact of the biggest hits each year and how that has evolved over time. Here’s what it shows:

As we can see, the days of Luca- or Turning Red-level viewership are long gone. Films like Moana 2 and Elemental can no longer even reach the 35M CVEs mark within 14 days, despite their box office success. Marvel films are also struggling, they used to easily surpass 17–18M CVEs, and now they’re lucky if they manage to get past 10M.

The Top 5 average has dropped by almost 40% between 2022 and 2025. I know what you’re thinking: “Sure, but 2021 and 2022 were during the pandemic, people were watching way more back then.” That’s a perfectly fair argument, and you’d expect to see the same downward trend across other streamers, right? Well, not at all, because I also looked at the annual average of the five most-watched films on Netflix and Amazon Prime between 2021 and 2025, and the results are quite surprising:

If I had to choose just one chart to sum up the streaming wars, it would be this one, because it captures pretty much everything you need to know about them.

First, there’s Netflix, whose consistency year after year is almost algorithmic, with an average that has barely changed since 2023. That’s typical of a service whose sole and central focus is streaming.

Then there’s Amazon Prime, which is basically flying blind, with no clear or stable strategy. Unsurprisingly, its curve goes up and down depending on whether its executives are prioritizing the streaming service or theatrical releases at any given moment.

And finally, there’s Disney+, which has clearly lost steam after once being one of Netflix’s strongest challengers in the U.S. during its launch and early years. Back then, under Bob Chapek, Disney’s goal was subscriber engagement, which meant releasing exclusive films directly on Disney+. That strategy angered many observers and film lovers, but it delivered the intended results. By shifting its focus from original releases to theatrical-first films, Disney has probably gained financially (at least when the movies are box office hits, right, Elio?), but it has lost overall viewership on Disney+.

In short, when it comes to films, things aren’t exactly rosy for Disney+. And when you look at series, it gets even worse.

When it comes to series, due to Nielsen’s limitations, I’m only focusing on new shows rather than returning ones. There aren’t many to begin with, and if you’re interested, I’ve already discussed at length the fate of Marvel and Star Wars series on Disney+ and their steady decline since 2021 in the article mentioned earlier.

In 2025, things look even worse so far. I couldn’t even find three new weekly Disney+ series to include for the year, and I had to estimate Daredevil: Born Again using Luminate data, since the show never made it into Nielsen’s Top 10 during its run. Naturally, that means it’s impossible to calculate an average Top 3 for 2025 but as you’ve probably guessed, it would be very low, significantly lower than in previous years.

The delay of Wonder Man to early 2026 instead of late 2025 means there will likely be no other new weekly Disney+ series besides Ironheart making it into Nielsen’s Top 10 this year—and that one only managed it thanks to its two-week, three-episode release schedule. That’s unprecedented.

Here again, Disney has clearly decided to cut its losses, and the service now finds itself in a rather precarious position. When it was releasing plenty of Marvel and Star Wars shows, viewership followed—though it declined with each new release and fueled audience fatigue toward both universes. In theory, slowing down the release pace should have rekindled interest, but the opposite happened, with even worse viewership numbers and outright cancelations like for The Acolyte.

How can Disney+ get out of this mess? The only bright spot in this chart is Percy Jackson & The Olympians, the sole genuine Disney+ hit in the past two years. And perhaps that’s where the hope lies: focusing on big-budget series set in established worlds that have no connection to Marvel or Star Wars. It’s a bit ironic, though, for a service that was largely built on those two franchises.

This drop in engagement on Disney+ is also clearly reflected in the Nielsen Gauge, which tracks each streamer’s monthly share of TV viewing time in the U.S. Since this year, Nielsen has been combining the audiences of Disney+ and Hulu under a single group called Disney Streaming, but that doesn’t change the overall picture, as the fates of Hulu and Disney+ seem closely intertwined.

The group reached its peak in October 2022 after nearly six months of steady growth, climbing to 6% of total TV screen time. In November 2022, then-CEO Bob Chapek was dismissed, and Bob Iger returned to lead Disney. Since then, the combined screen share of the two services has steadily declined, falling to 4.5% in September 2025, its lowest level since December 2023.

Once in close pursuit of Netflix, Disney Streaming now trails by 3.8 points, whereas at the height of their rivalry in October 2022, the gap was only 1.2 points. Behind it, the distance between Disney Streaming and its closest competitors is also narrowing. The gap with Amazon Prime Video, in particular, has shrunk dramatically, from an average lead of 2.7 points in 2022 to just 1.1 point in 2025.

HBO Max and Peacock have also closed the gap with Disney+/Hulu, but they seem to have plateaued in 2025 compared to 2024. Only Paramount+ has lost some ground relative to the overall Disney Streaming group between 2024 and 2025. Paramount+ and HBO Max have other challenges to deal with this year, so it’s understandable that their focus isn’t fully on the streaming wars. However, like Disney+/Hulu, they have chosen to prioritize theatrical exploitation and reduce releases, often at the expense of streaming engagement.

Fewer original series, fewer original films, and lower overall spending on Disney+: that seemed to be Bob Iger’s mandate when he returned at the end of 2022, intended to restore order to the streaming division’s finances. This was followed by program purges on Disney+, cancellations of planned series, and a general pullback from original productions, leaving only the essentials: a handful of major series. In theory, this should have generated significant savings for Disney on Disney+ costs but not really. Programming and production costs for Disney+ and Hulu remain very high and aren’t that much lower than they were during the Chapek era.

What Iger probably did was essentially say, “Don’t spend more than what’s already being spent,” and that has been Disney+’s guiding principle since Q4 2022, when Chapek was replaced. The same approach applies to Hulu. But looking at the combined numbers, the total programming and production costs for Disney+ and Hulu have remained roughly the same each quarter since the Chapek-to-Iger transition, not significantly lower. Would Chapek have done the same, or would he have continued to pour more money into Disney+ and Hulu productions? It’s impossible to say. What’s certain is that for the same amount of money spent each quarter on production and programmation costs since Q3 2022, Disney+ and Hulu are watched less now than at the time Chapek was ousted.

So, to summarize: declining, sometimes sharply declining, viewership, tightening competition, and costs that remain high. That doesn’t paint the picture of a healthy service. And yet…

Is engagement really that important when you keep gaining more subscribers who are willing to pay more for a service they use less?

Globally, Disney+ has reached 127.8 million subscribers, its highest official level if we don’t count all the early-years storytelling. Between 2019 and 2024, Disney artificially “inflated” its Disney+ subscriber numbers by including a surge of subscribers from its Indian service, Hotstar, which added 40 to 60 million additional accounts. These users weren’t there for the Disney universe but for sports rights. When this source of subscribers dwindled, Disney, in classic storytelling fashion, adjusted the scope, sidelined the Indian business, and eventually sold it.

This little trick lasted until the last quarter of 2024. So instead of reporting that Disney+ lost 35 million global subscribers between Q3 2022 (the last quarter of the Chapek era) and Q2 2025, the official narrative can still present a story of almost continuous growth over the past six years, at least until the next financial results.

What I find fascinating in this chart is that after a period of rapid subscriber growth, it suddenly stops in Q4 2022 (yes, that one again!) and stays flat for almost a year before starting to rise again but at a slower pace. It’s as if Chapek’s surprise replacement by Iger even stunned Disney+ subscribers.

In the U.S., it’s the same story, with the service now reaching a record high of around 57.8 million subscribers after two years of stagnation around 44–46 million. The magic trick to get out of this mess? Adding Disney+ to a widely used phone bundle. Subscribers are acquired easily, but they don’t necessarily use the service or may not even realize they have access to it.

On the revenue side, Disney+ can also be pleased with a steadily rising curve, now generating over $3 billion per quarter.

As we’ve seen, spending at Disney+ and Hulu has barely decreased since the worst quarter of the Chapek era (his last one), but it’s a completely different story for net revenue. From $1.4 billion in losses in Q3 2022 (truly the pivotal quarter that triggered Chapek’s downfall), Disney’s streaming services are now generating around $350 million in profit.

The solution here was simple: stabilize spending and boost revenue by raising subscription prices. Since Q4 2022, the average revenue per subscriber has increased from $3.90 to $7.86 in Q2 2025, essentially doubling, without negatively impacting the total number of subscribers.

Financially, then, everything is going perfectly for Disney+ and Disney’s streaming services, and that’s the paradox of Disney+: it has never had such low engagement while boasting so many subscribers and so much profit.

For now, the service has no pressing need to shake up its fundamentals to increase engagement. Subscribers are still there, growing in number, and they continue to pay more, presumably for access to the classic Disney catalog rather than the new releases, whose viewership is sharply declining. Disney+ now resembles more a vault (the famous Disney “vault”) that people like to have but don’t necessarily use.

How long can this continue? Disney fans aren’t quite like other customers, thanks to the brand loyalty cultivated by the Mouse House. They seem less sensitive to current prices and price increases as long as they can access a catalog of older programs that they (or their children) will watch repeatedly. They’ll pay whatever it takes to get in the parks, even as prices keep rising. And those who stop paying are immediately offset in the financial results by those who continue to pay more.

It’s truly a unique case in the global streaming landscape, and an enviable position for many but it likely has a ceiling. The question is: when will that ceiling be reached? What is certain, however, is that for viewership, we’re no longer talking about a ceiling but rather a floor and the question remains: when will that floor be reached as well?

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