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In the same week where there’s been growing buzz that Paramount Global is eyeing merging Showtime into its Paramount+ streaming service, there are some rumblings regarding the future of Hulu coming out of the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Tech Conference. And those rumblings came from none other than Disney CEO Bob Chapek, who addressed the topic during a speech he gave at the event. “The thing that you worry about when you’re Disney is brand friction, with some of the content that we may have in general entertainment,” Chapek said. “I am amazed every day in this job how elastic the Disney brand is. I would tell you that we have had no blowback whatsoever in terms of including that general entertainment content on a Disney-branded streaming proposition [outside of the U.S.]. I’m not saying it would be received exactly like that in the U.S., but it gives us some reason to believe that we have more degrees of freedom than anybody would have ever suspected.” Which is a very business-like way of asking that, while there could be a few bumps here and there in the U.S., the blending of more adult/mature content with Disney content has been working great overseas, so why not everywhere? And if that’s the case, then why keep Hulu around?
Just to be clear? This isn’t something that could happen any time soon (at least for now) because Comcast still has a financial stake in Hulu. And as part of the deal that was put into place when Disney assumed a majority of 21st Century Fox, “The Mouse” can’t buy out Comcast until the start of 2024. And while Disney “would love to” (Chapek’s words) speed up the process, Comcast doesn’t appear to be in a hurry (considering their stake is estimated at $27.5B and expected to rise before 2024, you can’t really blame them). Also, some numbers to consider: in the most recent Disney quarterly report, Disney+ was up to 152.1 million global subscribers, with Hulu checking in with 46.2 million subscribers.
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