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The Disney Bundle — Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ for $13.99 a month — has an instructions page that tell you step by step how to sign up, download, activate, and start watching three apps for the price of one. If you already subscribe to one, there’s an FAQ. If you already subscribe to more than one, contact Disney. Etc.

Possible alternative: Put it all in one app like Netflix.

That’s where things get complicated. Disney and Comcast share Hulu as part of a 2019 agreement for Comcast to sell its Hulu shares to Disney for a fair-market value of $27.5 billion or more in 2024. Seriously, in 2024. The deal gave Comcast’s NBCUniversal a lucrative licensing outlet while it built out its own Peacock service.

“It’s ridiculous that Disney has so many different apps, and unifying them certainly makes sense,” LightShed Partners media analyst Rich Greenfield told Decider. “It’s clear that Disney and Comcast are going their separate directions, and it doesn’t seem to make sense for the Hulu joint venture to continue to exist. Waiting until 2024 to end it makes no sense.”

A Hulu spokesperson told Collider’s Jeff Sneider in December that “there are no such plans” to merge Hulu into Disney+. (Hulu declined to comment for this story.)

Disney has made moves toward consolidating its streaming by: (1) adding ESPN+ functionality to Hulu in the United States and (2) adding a Hulu-like layer called Star to Disney+ in non-U.S. markets. Sports will continue to be a big draw for Disney with new NFL, NHL, and Southeastern Conference deals, and Disney’s major global competitors — Netflix, HBO Max, YouTube, Amazon and Apple — know that consumers stay with the streamers that have lots of great titles.

While those competitors bulk up, Hulu’s catalog will likely contract over the next few years as Disney shifts its originals spending to Disney+ and as other media companies take their catalogs back from Hulu:

WarnerMedia. TBS’s Full Frontal with Samantha Bee and Wrecked and truTV’s Impractical Jokers and At Home with Amy Sedaris left Hulu for HBO Max.
ViacomCBS. Nickelodeon’s Invader Zim and Danny Phantom left Hulu for Paramount+.
Discovery Communications. TLC’s 90 Day Fiancé, Food Network’s Chopped, and other Discovery-owned shows that currently stream exclusively on Hulu will likely move to Discovery+.
NBCUniversal. Some Bravo shows stream exclusively on Hulu, and other Bravo and NBC shows are available on both Hulu and Peacock. NBCUniversal will almost certainly make those titles exclusive to Peacock and end next-day NBC episodes on Hulu.

Disney’s inevitable solution for keeping U.S. subscribers coming back for more will be to do what its competitors are doing and what Disney itself is doing globally — put it all in one service for one price.

Why Isn’t Hulu Global? It’s Complicated.

In 2007, Disney, 20th Century Fox, and NBCUniversal launched Hulu as an online outlet for ABC, FOX and NBC shows, and the service grew over the next decade into a major U.S. streamer. TimeWarner (now WarnerMedia) bought a 10% stake in 2016 as part of a deal to make Hulu the streaming home of TNT, TBS, truTV, and Cartoon Network originals.

By 2017, Netflix’s growing global dominance and the steepening decline in U.S. cable and satellite households set off a wave of corporate consolidation — Discovery Communications bought Scripps Networks, Disney bought Fox, AT&T bought TimeWarner — and media companies reoriented their business models from cable networks to global streamers.

Disney controlled 70% of Hulu following its Fox acquisition and a separate deal with WarnerMedia, but Disney’s complicated arrangement to buy NBCUniversal’s 30% of Hulu would keep those two companies entangled until at least 2024.

In April 2019, Disney announced that Disney+ would become a global streaming home for Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic. When Disney+ launched in November 2019 in the United States and globally in early 2020, it would be completely separate from Hulu and from Disney’s ESPN+ service. Hulu, then-CEO Bob Iger said Hulu would get an international rollout “probably in 2021.”

Star is Hulu for the Rest of the World

Hulu has not gotten an international rollout so far in 2021, and it’s not likely to get one in the future. In February, Disney+ launched Star, which is a new content hub for Disney+ subscribers in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Singapore that’s built right into the service.

Disney+ Star in those countries — which U.S. subscribers can actually use if you subscribe to a service like ExpressVPN that makes your device think it’s in another country — looks almost identical to the U.S. Disney+ interface, but there is a sixth content hub called Star next to the usual Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic hubs.

The content rows on the home screen and in the Star hub include thousands of film and TV titles from Disney, FX, Searchlight Films, 20th Century Fox, and other Disney-owned nameplates that are not available on Disney+ in the United States. On Disney+ Star in Australia, the Comedy Movies row includes Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Pixar’s Incredibles 2 and Disney’s Hercules but also Searchlight’s (500) Days of Summer and 20th Century Fox’s Dodgeball.

If you subscribe to the U.S. Disney+/Hulu bundle, you’re not missing much from Disney+ Star. Most of the titles available globally on Star — High Fidelity, black-ish, The Orville, Glee, Bob’s Burgers, 911, Siren, etc. — are Hulu titles in the United States.

Hulu is Already Moving Toward a Bundle

In early March, Hulu launched ESPN+ on Hulu as a new Sports tab for households who subscribe to both Hulu and ESPN+. ESPN noted in the announcement that subscribers would be able to begin purchasing ESPN+ pay-per-view events on Hulu sometime this summer.

At the present, ESPN+ is a hodgepodge of UFC, Top Rank boxing, college sports, international sports, select MLB and NHL games, news shows and docuseries like 30 for 30 and Peyton’s Place. Over the next few years, ESPN+ will become a major outlet for NFL, NHL and Southeastern Conference games, including many that will also be available on ESPN and ABC.

The NFL’s $100 billion, 11-year broadcast package has big implications for ESPN+:

Monday Night Football games will be available on both ESPN and ESPN+.
ESPN+ will also have an exclusive game each season that will be played in an international location.
ABC’s Super Bowls in 2026 and 2030 will likely stream on ESPN+.

What ESPN+ means by 2026 or 2030 — a stand-alone app, part of Hulu, or part of a unified Disney+ — is an open question.

Scott Porch writes about the TV business for Decider. He is a contributing writer for The Daily Beast and a podcast producer for Starburns Audio. Follow him on Twitter @ScottPorch.