Last month Disney unveiled their streaming service, Disney+, and this morning it’s been announced they now have full control over another major streaming platform – Hulu. In a deal with the other major shareholder, Comcast, Disney will take control of the streaming service effective immediately as part of a “put/call” deal, which will allow either company to force a sale of Comcast’s remaining 30 percent stock to Disney in 2024, giving them full ownership.
Disney was expected to make such a move after buying 20th Century Fox gave them an additional 30 percent stock in Hulu (adding to their pre-existing 30 percent stake), which they would then use to make the service one of the “three legs of the stool” for their upcoming streaming service machine – bundled with Disney+ and ESPN+. While Disney+ will house much of the company’s original content and movies, Hulu is seen as a major get for television programming, offering mainstream titles as soon as they premiere on cable, with bundles that allow for live TV and add-ons like HBO and Showtime.
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As part of the deal, Comcast will keep its NBCUniversal content on the service, as well as the NBC channels on the live TV package through 2024. Comcast is also planning on launching their own streaming service, and in one year they will be able to put their shows airing exclusively on Hulu onto their own service as well, in exchange for lowering Hulu’s licensing fee for the content. AT&T owned near 10 percent of the remaining stock in Hulu before bowing out, and Disney and Comcast agreed to fund that gap purchase as long as it maintained their two thirds/one third standing ownership. But, come 2024, Disney is set up to own the entire thing outright.
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For Disney, this is yet another strong move towards a strong streaming portfolio. With Disney+ they will have their impressive slate of movies – both exclusive to the service and from their back/future catalog – which will mostly be geared towards families and the PG-13 crowd. With Hulu, they will have room for any of the more adult content and expanding library of Fox titles, such as the DEADPOOL movies. When Disney+ was unveiled last month a bundle option was teased, meaning subscribers could pair Disney+ with Hulu and ESPN+, which this deal makes it easier for them to do. Basically, even regardless of bundling, Disney will soon have control of *two* major streaming services on the market.
Come 2024 when Disney is poised to officially buy out Comcast’s remaining stock in Hulu for whatever the fair market price is at that point (which will likely skyrocket now with Disney having control), it could create issues involving that NBC content. Fans of certain shows likely have Hulu for that content, but just as the situation goes for Netflix’s catalog of other network shows (THE OFFICE, FRIENDS), will subscribers stick around if that content is taken off and put on Comcast’s own service exclusively? Will they pay for two services that are nothing but Disney content?
But that's an issue for another time. The fact of the matter is the streaming wars are going to be in full bloom here soon as Disney becomes a major player in the market and gives the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime a run for their money. At $6.99 for their basic Disney+ streaming plan and options to also bundle at, perhaps, similarly cheap rates, it may not be much of a competition once Disney officially enters the mix this fall. Should we bow to the overlords now, or is it rude if we wait a bit?