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The Walt Disney Co. now has “full operational control” of Hulu, the company announced at the beginning of their Upfront executive call this morning. A Disney executive said that the deal will be “effective immediately,” and in the coming weeks, the company plans to finalize its deal with Comcast to become the sole owner of the SVOD service. According to the company’s official press release, under the terms of the deal, “Comcast can require Disney to buy NBCUniversal’s interest in Hulu as early as January 2024, and Disney can require NBCU to sell its interest to Disney for its fair market value at that future time.”
Disney’s press release explains that Hulu will remain tied to NBCUniversal for the next three years, at least. As part of the deal, NBCU shows will be available to stream on Hulu “until late 2024,” but NBCU has the option to terminate those license agreements “in three years’ time.” That means that NBC shows could leave as early as 2022 or as late as 2024, depending on how both parties feel about the agreement. The press release also reveals that “in one year’s time NBCUniversal will have the right to exhibit its own OTT service content that it currently licenses exclusively to Hulu,” which suggests that NBC’s streaming service will launch by this time next year (this is consistent with what NBC execs said at yesterday’s Upfront presentation).
Before Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, Hulu was split between Comcast, Fox, and Disney (30% each) and AT&T (10%). After the Disney-Fox merger, Disney assumed a majority stake in the SVOD service, and in mid April, they gained more ground when AT&T sold their share. Many industry analysts assumed that Comcast, the lone hold-out, would eventually sell their share, particularly as NBCU prepares to launch its own streaming service.
Disney CEO Bob Iger discussed the Hulu news this morning at MoffettNathanson’s Media & Communications Summit. According to Laughing Place’s live blog of the event, Iger revealed that Disney hopes to manage customers across Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+, its three big streaming services. He also shared that Disney plans to make FX a large part of Hulu, adding that FX will begin creating original content for the streaming service immediately (it seems that FX+ is not long for this world).
