The path of streaming has been a wild one and it seems it may get even more so! At least–that is if Disney CEO Bob Chapek gets his way of merging major streaming services Disney+ and Hulu.
In a statement to investors last week, Chapek revealed he’d “love to get to a point sooner than later where Disney can integrate Hulu into Disney+. However, all that stands in the way is Comcast, who still owns a 38% stake in Hulu.
“We’d have to have full ownership of Hulu to integrate it into Disney+,” Chapek said last Wednesday. “We would love to get to the endpoint earlier, but that obviously takes some level of propensity for the other party to have reasonable terms for us to get there. And if we could get there, I would be more than happy to try to facilitate that.”
It is worth pointing out that Disney currently has operational control in Hulu and the largest stake in the company. Additionally, Comcast has already agreed to sell its stake in the service by 2024 at its fair market value.
Comcast currently has its own streaming service: Peacock. This service offers a great deal of NBCUniversal content. Some of which it has been pulled from Hulu this past year after NBCU ended a licensing deal with the streaming service.
Although, it is also true that Peacock has struggled to gain a massive following. As of the most recent quarter the service only had 13 million subscribers, and it has shown no growth compared to its previous one.
Hulu had 46.2 million subscribers in the US as of Disney’s most recent quarterly update. This is up from 42.8 million compared to the same time last year. Disney+ had 152 million subscribers globally.
What are your thoughts on the idea that Hulu may merge with Disney+ in the future? Let us know in the comments!
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