Disney Has Taken Full Command Of Hulu

Image from JoBlo

Disney recently bought Hulu, and now the handover is pretty much complete.

Comcast agreed last Tuesday to sell its stake in the streaming service behind The Handmaid’s Tale. The actual sale won’t take place for a few years, but Disney now has full operational control over Hulu.

The digital streaming industry has been taking off in the last few years, but the industry has been going through some changes as well. Hulu started off as a joint venture between Time Warner, 21st Century Fox, and Comcast’s NBCUniversal. At the time, none of these companies held a majority of Hulu, however. The situation is still changing, as Comcast still owns about one third of Hulu, but they will sell it to Disney at Hulu’s fair market value sometime after 2023.

At the moment, Disney is the majority shareholder in Hulu, making Hulu a Disney product for all intents and purposes. Disney became the majority shareholder in Hulu after Disney bought most of Fox’s assets in March. Furthermore, Warner Media, which is now owned by AT&T, agreed to sell its interest back to Hulu.

Disney has already announced that Hulu will become a critical part of its streaming mission. When Disney+ was introduced to investors last month, much time was spent explaining how Hulu will provide plenty of content in the future. Hulu is well-known for its diverse library of both original programs and vintage shows.

Hulu currently has over 27 million paid subscribers, which is great but still far behind some of the competition, including Netflix, which has almost 150 million subscribers. Of Netflix’s 150 million subscribers, 60 million are in the US, while Hulu is only available in the US. Hulu, for its part, is about to launch plenty of new content which could appeal to a diverse audience.

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