Disney has reached a provisional deal with NBCUniversal to take full control of the US streaming platform Hulu.
We’ve known for years now that at some point Disney was going to take full ownership of the US streaming platform, Hulu.
The platform hosts a lot of the programming and cinema that we get bundled in with Disney+ over here in the UK under the ‘Star’ banner. In fact, that’s the case in a lot of international markets, with Hulu only having made the transition to Japan with its branding intact.
In the US though, Hulu has a sizeable following of around 48 million subscribers and is co-owned by Disney and Comcast, the owner of NBCUniversal. This was never going to last forever with that kind of arrangement.
Spoiler: it hasn’t.
Around four years ago, Disney took on complete operating control of the platform and set up an arrangement to eventually purchase Hulu fully. The price that has been agreed by the two parties is $8.61bn although that could yet change as the streaming platform’s value as of September will be assessed to ensure that the agreed price is a fair valuation.
Read more: Disney 100 | The birthday celebration that’s gone a bit sour
Comcast has triggered the sale as per an agreement between the two companies and whilst the sale certainly supports Disney’s aim of growing its stake in the streaming market, the company isn’t in the same comfortable position that it was when it signed the deal back in May 2019, coming off the back of an incredible run of success that it has since struggled to emulate.
The deal is expected to go through sometime next year whilst in the meantime, eyes will continue to be trained on Disney to see what other moves the company will make to secure a greater stake in the streaming sector.
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