The Walt Disney Company has been working on cutting down its costs and streamlining its streaming services to be more profitable since current Disney CEO Bob Iger came back to take the helm last November. After former Disney CEO Bob Chapek was ousted from his position, one of Mr. Iger’s priorities was getting the company back on track and cutting costs as necessary. This resulted in the massive Disney layoffs that overtook headlines for a few months.
As part of this exercise, one of the big questions was the fate of streaming service Hulu. Earlier this year, during the earnings call that happened in May, Disney announced it would be changing how it presented the content on Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+ to audiences. With this change, many wondered if it was inevitable that Disney would have to buy out Hulu from Comcast in its entirety.
And, if Comcast CEO Brian Roberts is to be believed, it’s more likely than not that this will be the case.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, the Comcast CEO was at the MoffettNathanson Inaugural Technology, Media and Telecom conference on Tuesday, where he spoke on the matter. Roberts shared, “I think we have a very valuable position,” referencing the NBCUniversal owner’s decision on either keeping its minority stake in Hulu or requiring Disney to buy them out.
“I think it’s more likely than not … that we’ll put the call at the beginning of next year,” the Comcast CEO said with an eye to an earlier agreement that would allow the studio to exercise a right to sell its Hulu stake at a negotiated price.
Roberts also added that Comcast shareholders would benefit immensely from the sale, commenting, “I’m pretty certain that when we sell our Hulu stake, it’ll be for more than what we have in it. In fact, that’s contractually certain.”
With Roberts’ recent comments and Disney’s move to combine all of their streaming services into one app, it seems like the Walt Disney Company will soon likely be the sole owner of Hulu and all of its content.
