The Walt Disney Company has no interest in shutting down or parting ways with its general entertainment streaming service Hulu, despite reports that suggest otherwise, the company’s CEO affirmed in a TV interview this week.
In an interview with CNBC, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the company’s intention to acquire full control of Hulu will allow it to launch the brand globally and roll out more bundling opportunities with other services.
The comments came about a day after Puck News published a column by its founding partner Matthew Belloni, who speculated that Disney’s recent intergration of Hulu content into Disney Plus was proof that the general entertainment streamer was becoming immaterial to its business.
“The integration of Hulu content into Disney Plus has worked well,” Belloni wrote. “Outside this country, Disney already puts Hotstar, its general-interest brand, under Disney Plus, without offering it as a separate service. It seems natural that the same fate will befall Hulu.”
Disney charges around $10 per month for the ad-supported tier of Hulu, and the same price for the ad-lite tier of Disney Plus. A bundled offering that pairs the two services together costs $11 per month with ads, or $20 per month for commercial-free streaming.
Bundles are also available that pair Disney Plus and Hulu with ESPN Plus, its sports-focused streamer, and Warner Bros Discovery-owned Max.
Belloni’s column was published before Tuesday’s news that Disney will pay Comcast more than $400 million to acquire its remaining 33 percent stake in Hulu, which will give it full ownership of the platform.
Rather than shut it down, Iger told CNBC that the company will transform Hulu “into a more global brand,” though he didn’t offer many specifics.
Hulu ended its most-recent quarter with more than 50 million subscribers. In the U.S., Disney Plus has nearly 58 million subscribers.
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