Our adjusted earnings per share of $1.06 is up from $0.32 a year ago.
And our streaming services ended Q1 with 196.4 million total subscriptions after adding 17.4 million in the quarter, including 11.8 million Disney+ subscribers.
In the midst of a global pandemic, fast-changing consumer expectations and a leadership transition, we reimagined our parks business, substantially increased our investment in content creation and executed a reorganization that will facilitate our ongoing transformation.
In short, our collection of assets and platforms, creative capabilities, and unique place in the cultural zeitgeist give me great confidence that we will continue to define entertainment for the next 100 years.
The quality content from our teams was recognized just yesterday with a fantastic 23 Oscar nominations, including three of the five best animated feature films: Pixar's Luca; Walt Disney Animation's Raya and the Last Dragon; and our newest franchise, Walt Disney Animation's Encanto, which received three nominations.
And Q1 saw 10 of their shows achieve a 100% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes.
That includes Abbott Elementary, the first freshman broadcast comedy to earn the 100% Certified Fresh score since ABC's own Modern Family in 2009.
In fact, six of the 10 most-watched programs across our services are general entertainment titles produced by our own team.
Sporting events continue to be the most powerful draw in television, accounting for 95 of the 100 most-watched live broadcast in 2021.
We'll debut two Marvel series, Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk; fresh new shorts from Disney Animation and Pixar featuring the worlds of Big Hero 6 and Cars; a live-action reimagining of the Disney classic Pinocchio, starring Tom Hanks as Geppetto; and one of the most anticipated sequels in some time, especially in the Chapek household, Hocus Pocus 2.
As I've said before, we continue to manage our services for the long term and maintain confidence in our guidance of 230 million to 260 million total paid Disney+ subscribers globally by the end of fiscal 2024.
With outstanding music from Lin-Manuel Miranda, it became the fastest title to cross 200 million hours viewed on Disney+ and took social media by storm.
People around the world expressed their fandom through their own content and conversation, and the Encanto hashtag has been viewed more than 11 billion times.
197 on the Billboard 200 chart, reached No.
1 shortly after debuting on Disney+.
And eight of the film's songs hit the Hot 100 chart, including We Don't Talk About Bruno, which became the first Disney song to reach No.
1 since Aladdin's A Whole New World in 1993.
That number rose to more than 50% during the holiday period.
Excluding certain items, diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $1.06, an increase of $0.74 from the prior-year quarter.
Fiscal 2022 is off to a good start as evidenced by our first-quarter results and our continued progress toward more normalized operations across our businesses.
At parks, experiences, and products, operating income was up $2.6 billion year over year as all of our parks and resorts around the world were open for the entirety of the fiscal first quarter.
Per capita spending at our domestic parks was up more than 40% versus fiscal first quarter 2019 driven by a more favorable guest and ticket mix, higher food, beverage and merchandise spending and contributions from Genie+ and Lightning Lane.
First-quarter operating income decreased by more than $600 million versus the prior year as revenue growth across our lines of business was more than offset by higher programming and production costs.
Revenue growth in the quarter was primarily driven by increased subscription fees from our direct-to-consumer services.
At linear networks, you may recall that we guided to a decrease in operating income of nearly $500 million for Q1 versus the prior year.
Operating income of $1.5 billion came in better than expected, primarily driven by our international channels, which I'll discuss in a minute.
ESPN advertising revenue in the first quarter was up 14% versus the prior year and second quarter-to-date domestic cash advertising sales at ESPN are currently pacing up.
Total domestic affiliate revenue increased by 2% in the quarter.
These results came in more than $200 million better than our prior guidance primarily due to lower programming and production costs as well as better-than-expected advertising and affiliate revenues.
At direct-to-consumer, first-quarter operating results decreased by $127 million year over year, driven by higher losses at Disney+ and ESPN+, partially offset by improved results at Hulu.
Operating losses at Disney+ increased versus the prior year as growth in subscription revenue was more than offset by higher programming, technology, and marketing costs.
We ended the quarter with nearly 130 million global paid Disney+ subscribers, reflecting over 11 million net additions from Q4.
We added 4.1 million paid domestic Disney+ subscribers, including a benefit of approximately 2 million incremental subscribers from our strategic decision to include Disney+ and ESPN+ as part of a Hulu Live subscription.
In international markets, excluding Disney+ Hotstar, we added 5.1 million paid subscribers, primarily driven by growth in Asia Pacific and European markets.
Finally, we were able to resume growth in Disney+ Hotstar markets with 2.6 million paid subscriber additions in the quarter.
At ESPN+, we ended the first quarter with over 21 million paid subscribers versus 17 million in Q4.
Hulu ended the first quarter with 45.3 million paid subscribers, inclusive of 4.3 million subscribers to our Hulu Live digital MVPD service.
Moving on to content sales/licensing and other.
Results decreased in the first quarter versus the prior year to an operating loss of $98 million, driven by lower theatrical results and higher film impairments, partially offset by improved TV SVOD results.
As I noted last quarter, while theaters have generally reopened, we are still experiencing a prolonged recovery to theatrical exhibition, particularly for certain genres of films, including non-branded general entertainment and family focused animation.
At direct-to-consumer, we expect programming and production expenses to increase by approximately $800 million to $1 billion, including programming fees for Hulu Live.
At linear networks, we expect programming and production expenses to increase by approximately $500 million, reflecting factors including COVID-related timing shifts.
As a result, we expect operating income to be adversely impacted by more than $200 million versus the prior-year quarter.

Summary:
Our adjusted earnings per share of $1.06 is up from $0.32 a year ago.
And our streaming services ended Q1 with 196.4 million total subscriptions after adding 17.4 million in the quarter, including 11.8 million Disney+ subscribers.
In the midst of a global pandemic, fast-changing consumer expectations and a leadership transition, we reimagined our parks business, substantially increased our investment in content creation and executed a reorganization that will facilitate our ongoing transformation.
Excluding certain items, diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $1.06, an increase of $0.74 from the prior-year quarter.
Fiscal 2022 is off to a good start as evidenced by our first-quarter results and our continued progress toward more normalized operations across our businesses.
Revenue growth in the quarter was primarily driven by increased subscription fees from our direct-to-consumer services.
Operating losses at Disney+ increased versus the prior year as growth in subscription revenue was more than offset by higher programming, technology, and marketing costs.
Hulu ended the first quarter with 45.3 million paid subscribers, inclusive of 4.3 million subscribers to our Hulu Live digital MVPD service.
Moving on to content sales/licensing and other.
As I noted last quarter, while theaters have generally reopened, we are still experiencing a prolonged recovery to theatrical exhibition, particularly for certain genres of films, including non-branded general entertainment and family focused animation.