Customers Ditched Disney+, Hulu After Kimmel Suspension

Cancellation rates for both streaming services doubled in September from a month earlier.

Customer cancellations for the Disney+ and Hulu streaming services jumped in September, after the company briefly suspended the ABC late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”.

Jimmy Kimmel’s recent guests have included Jeff Bridges.

The rate of customer defections for Disney+ doubled to 8% from 4% in August, while those for Hulu doubled to 10% from 5%, according to data from subscription-analytics company Antenna. The rate is calculated by dividing the number of cancellations in a given month by subscribers at the end of the prior month.

Antenna estimated a total of 3 million cancellations for Disney+ and 4.1 million for Hulu in September. Both of those figures far exceeded the trailing three-month averages for the services, a sign of customers’ ire over Disney’s decision to temporarily suspend the show.

Celebrities including Cynthia Nixon and Howard Stern said they were canceling their Disney+ subscriptions following Kimmel’s suspension and urged others to do the same.

Disney took Kimmel off the air on Sept. 17, after his comments related to the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr suggested during a podcast appearance that the FCC might come down on broadcasters that didn’t take action against Kimmel. Owners of some ABC-TV stations, including broadcasters Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair, told the network they were dropping the show.

Disney brought Kimmel’s show back on Sept. 23. It garnered more than 6 million viewers, compared with the show’s second-quarter average of 1.8 million viewers.

Nexstar and Sinclair agreed to return Kimmel’s show to their stations shortly after Disney put him back on air.

Cancellation rates for many other major streaming services held fairly steady in September.

Antenna’s figures exclude some subscribers who join services as a result of an agreement with third parties such as wireless carriers.

Write to Isabella Simonetti at isabella.simonetti@wsj.com