After revealing that Disney+ and Hulu will be combined into a single app offering by the end of the year on Wednesday, Disney CEO Bob Iger suggested that the hybrid subscription/ad-supported streamer’s future lies in the hands of rival Comcast. lives.
under a 2019 Put/Call Agreement, Disney could buy parent NBCUniversal’s 33% minority stake in Hulu as early as January 2024 — and Comcast could require that Disney do the same. At the time, Disney guaranteed a minimum total equity value of $27.5 billion for Hulu, suggesting that Comcast’s stake would be worth at least $9 billion. As of October 1, 2022, Disney values Comcast’s stake at $8.7 billion.
In February, Iger said that Disney was looking at Hulu “very, very carefully” and suggested that all options were on the table, including a possible sale. But on Wednesday, he acknowledged on the company’s earnings call that it’s “really not fully determined what will happen in that regard.”
“Everything was on the table, but now I’ve had three months to really study this carefully and figure out what’s the best way for us to grow the business and it’s clear that Disney, along with general entertainment, + is a very strong combination from a subscriber perspective, from a subscriber acquisition perspective, from a subscriber retention perspective and also from an advertisers perspective,” he explained. in which general entertainment and Disney Plus content will be together. How that ultimately unfolds is somewhat in the hands of Comcast and basically in the hands of the talks or conversations that we have. I’m not going to make any predictions Don’t want to know when or how this will end.
According to Iger, Disney has already had “some conversations” with Comcast about the stake.
“They’ve been cordial and aimed to be constructive, but I can’t really say where they end up just saying that there seems to be real value in general entertainment combined with Disney+ and ultimately Hulu being that solution.” Which is what we’re excited about,” he said.
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts previously expressed interest in acquiring Disney’s two-thirds stake in Hulu should it go up for sale, while former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell previously predicted Disney would write a “big check” for Comcast’s minority Hulu stake.
When asked about the Hulu stake during Morgan Stanley’s Technology, Media & Telecom Conference In March, Comcast chairman Mike Cavanagh said that a “very clear and good deal for the put call” had been made in 2019 and that any other deal with Disney should be “better than that in our mind”.
Representatives for Comcast did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.
Hulu added 200,000 subscribers during Disney’s second fiscal quarter 2023 for a total of 48.2 million, including 43.7 million SVOD-only subscribers and 4.4 million Hulu and Live TV subscribers.
Hulu’s SVOD-only average revenue per user fell 6% from $12.46 to $11.73, driven by lower per-subscriber advertising revenue and a higher mix of subscribers to multi-product offerings, partially offset by an increase in average retail price . When combining SVOD with live TV, Hulu’s ARPU climbed 5% from $87.90 to $92.32, primarily due to an increase in average retail price, partially offset by lower per-subscriber advertising revenue.
