Disney To Buy Full Control Of Hulu

[RAMROD 104,940]

Disney has agreed to take full control of Hulu in a deal with Comcast, which has owned a third of the streamer ever since Disney’s acquisition of the 21st Century Fox entertainment assets.

“The acquisition of Comcast’s stake in Hulu at fair market value will further Disney’s streaming objectives,” the Bob Iger-led company said in a statement on Wednesday. 

A securities filing confirmed that NBCUniversal triggered the purchase earlier in the day.

Wall Street has over the past year repeatedly discussed Hulu’s future due to its shared ownership and put and call options. Starting in November, Comcast has had a put option to require Disney to take over its stake, while Disney has had the right to tell Comcast to sell it its stake. As per an agreement between the two companies, Hulu was set to get a fair market value assessment from independent experts, but the guaranteed minimum Hulu valuation of $27.5 billion means that Disney knew it had to cough up at least $9 billion.

In the filing Wednesday, Disney said that it expects to pay $8.61 billion by Dec. 1 (meeting the floor valuation), though it will go through the appraisal process to determine the final appraisal of Hulu’s value, and how much (if any) the company will need to pay beyond the $8.61 billion number.

“While the timing of the appraisal process is uncertain, we anticipate it should be completed during the 2024 calendar year,” Disney said.

In July, Moffett and Nathanson forecast Hulu would add roughly 2.0 million subscribers a year “to reach 55.2 million subscribers by 2026,” including 49.7 million SVOD users, the rest Live TV+SVOD customers. “We expect Hulu to reach $14.1 billion in revenues in fiscal year 2026.”

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/hulu-disney-comcast-deal-full-control-1235579832/

[MonsterofFame 1,780]

Disney should sell 21st Century Fox and Hulu along with it. They're trying to do too much and they're going to slowly fail. Disney should stick to what they do best - family content and theme parks. 

[Catnikko 13,937]

does this mean AHS will finally come out on disney at the same time it does on hulu? please 

[tylerjs 5,510]

1 hour ago, MonsterofFame said:

Disney should sell 21st Century Fox and Hulu along with it. They're trying to do too much and they're going to slowly fail. Disney should stick to what they do best - family content and theme parks. 

I think this does make sense on paper but the reality is that a huge portion of Disney’s funding for exemplary theme parks/family content comes from the huge amounts of money they make on other ventures like this. I’d venture to say if Disney didn’t have extra income like that, they wouldn’t be able to do nearly as much or nearly as well when it comes to the parks and family content budgets

[RebeldeFaith 4,601]

So we can expect them to raise the price again soon then. 

[Shadow 6,481]

Disney has been in trouble lately.  Bob Iger might need to make tough decisions...

https://www.axios.com/2023/11/01/what-the-heck-is-happening-at-disney

[Taylucifer 5,073]

and now I'm worried for Hulu shows