Disney announced plans to fully acquire Hulu from Comcast. They want to buy the remaining 1/3 of the shares held by Comcast at a value of $8.6 billion. This is seen as Disney+'s strategy to restructure their streaming strategy which is now slowing down post-pandemic growth.
The upstream value will be reassessed before the purchase is finalized in December. Previously Disney owned 2/3 of Hulu with their content separated from Disney+ to distinguish incompatible TV series or movies for family viewing.
In Malaysia, some of Hulu's original content is offered through Disney+ Hotstar, for example the movie Prey last year. Since the end of the pandemic, Disney+'s increase in new subscribers has slowed as they adopt a strategy of offering plans with ads like Netflix. Prices have also been raised but Disney+ has yet to post a profit. The original target was to turn a profit by 2024 but this was seen as overly optimistic with Disney content becoming less popular.
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BUSINESS & MONEY