Disney to gain full ownership of Hulu, will buy Comcast's share
Disney has announced it will buy out Comcast’s share of the Hulu streaming service.
Comcast owns a third of Hulu, with Disney owning the rest. As part of how Disney acquired Hulu (via buying 20th Century Fox), Comcast has the option to force this buyout at some point. At a minimum, it’ll cost Disney $8.6 billion to buy Hulu, though the exact amount (based on Hulu’s market value) is subject to further negotiations. Still, with a minimum value of $27.5 billion, Hulu is worth more than the market cap of entire media conglomerates, such as Warner Bros. and Paramount.
I wrote about this back in March, as I pondered the fate of Hulu. Out of the scenarios I proposed, the most likely one has come to pass: Disney just buying out Comcast. Hulu is already basically Disney’s adult programming arm, and the brand still has strong familiarity and value. That said, there remains two possible outcomes at this point:
Status quo: Hulu remains a stand-alone service. However, as previously announced, Disney Bundle subscribers will see Hulu as a category under the Disney+ app, similar to the Star category on non-US Disney+.
The stand-alone, on-demand service is axed: Hulu becomes merely a category of Disney+.
What's Hulu's future?
Out of the two scenarios above, my prediction is #1. Besides the reasons listed above, as Variety notes, Hulu is also very lucrative as an ad-supported streaming service. Keeping it as-is means Disney gets two ad-based streaming services (thanks to ad-based Disney+). Hulu is also popular on its own, and frequently on sale (such as for Black Friday). That said, Hulu's a better value bundled with Disney+ than buying by itself.
Hulu also offers a cable TV replacement service, Hulu Live. Since I haven’t seen any talk about axing that service, it wouldn’t make sense to ditch the standalone, on-demand version of Hulu.
For non-US Disney+ subscribers: Hulu replacing Star?
My other prediction: the Hulu brand will replace Star on non-US versions of Disney+. I don’t see Hulu as a stand-alone service expanding outside the US; non-American Disney+ customers are used to getting “Family Guy” and “Spidey and His Amazing Friends” under the same service. (Plus, people are increasingly tapped out paying for multiple streaming services.)
Meanwhile, I can see Hulu replacing the Star category easily. Many “Star Originals” are just rebranded Hulu Originals (with a different opening logo, apparently), so just keeping their original branding would be easy. The “Hulu” name is also unique, and with none of the trademark problems that have plagued Star as a brand. Finally, Disney certainly wants their money's worth out of the nearly $9 billion purchase, so may as well use the "Hulu" name.
Image: Hulu's adult animation page. (Hulu / screenshot by author)