Disney is about to own all of Hulu | Disney’s paying more than $8 billion for Comcast’s stake in Hulu.

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 427 points – Disney is about to own all of Hulu
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Disney is about to own all of Hulu | Disney’s paying more than $8 billion for Comcast’s stake in Hulu.::Disney and Comcast have reached a deal on Hulu’s buyout. Disney expects to pay about $8.61 billion to get the 33 percent owned by Comcast as a result of their agreement in 2019.

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This does not look like it’ll end up well for the consumer… can we please get some company busting going on in this current capitalistic hellscape?

By 2030:

DISNEY BUYS RIGHTS TO OXYGEN ON PLANET EARTH, WILL BEGIN A $500/MONTH SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE CALLED DISNEY AIR, FOR ANY CUSTOMERS WHO WOULD LIKE TO LIVE ON.

Either this option or choose the slightly cheaper but riskier life deprivation option of being a Musk Mars Slave. Hopefully the plan of Susan B. Anthony dollar suicide booths will have been fleshed out and running by then.

I don't actually expect much to change for the consumer end on this one. Comcast had already started moving their content over to Peacock.

Disney already owned 66% of Hulu, and has run Hulu for years.

They merged the engineering teams a few years ago. Honestly, separating Hulu from Disney right now would be way harder than turning them into one streaming service.

Oh no, luxury services that nobody needs at all will make profit because the average consumer will pay for it. Whatever shall we do.

2 more...

Something something monopoly

Something something your government should do something about it but it doesn't because it's controlled by big corpos

Not really applicable here. Comcast went their own way with Peacock. CBS went with Paramount+. No idea what FOX is doing since they sold off their production to Disney.

We're still looking at a monopoly from the perspective of accessing particular content.

We would all be more happier if the video streaming platforms operated closer to the music platforms where all platforms had mostly the same content, and we just got to pick the experience we want.

As is there is no choise if you're looking for something in particular, which is pretty similar to a monopoly.

Would you rather have 5 services that you can choose which to pay for or have to pay the entire cost of all 5 together?

Neither?

I would rather have 20 services, all with access to most of the same content.

Some services give you the option to pick and choose which media packages you want.

These services are now able to compete on a mostly even ground in terms of content, and instead there is an incentive for them to provide a good user experience.

This would also encourage the media companies to stop licencing their content exclusively or as upfront large blocks, and instead per/stream style licensing could show up (where a content owner is paid based off how much their content is watched).

This would then encourage media companies to produce content people want to watch, rather than the last 10 years where the priority is to have larger libraries of exclusive content (even if that content isn't good).

None of that is a given if content companies didn't also own the streaming companies, but it's is the sort of market that had the best version of Netflix (before they were making content their user experience was much better).

So you want tech companies to spend money on features completely outside of the content and then also have the content, and expect that not to cost substantially more?

Producing “content people want to watch” gets you lowest common denominator crap. Say goodbye to prestige TV and hello to reality TV.

You're sooooo close.

I want tech companies to create streaming services.

I want content companies to make content.

AKA removing the monopoly.

And somehow you think it’ll be cheaper. It hasn’t made music streaming cheaper. It hasn’t made streaming cable replacements cheaper.

It has made music streaming cheaper.

If you don't like Spotify or feel it's too expensive, do a google search, there are like a dozen alternatives, most of them cheaper.

For Spotify you're paying for one of the better user experiences.

Like I said, you're sooooo close to understanding

The music streaming format would be great, but I'm not sure the TV streaming services is all that different than the channel packages cable used to sell. It's still somewhat better than cable with on demand access and ability to add and drop whenever you want.

Not that I think any of this is good, just that I'm not sure its any more monopolistic than broadcast/cable ever were.

I'm back to where I started, 100% 🏴‍☠️. I tried to play nice for about 3 years only to get fucked about every year. No more.

I have no issues paying for Spotify. Even with their recent rate increases, it's still a one-stop shop for pretty much all of my listening needs. That's worth paying for.

When it comes to visual media if there was an option that could give me what Spotify gives me I would gladly pay for the service.

From what I'm seeing the high seas are once again the only place that I can get everything I want in one place.

Maybe they’ll roll Hulu’s content into Disney+ without raising prices.

Without raising prices, right?

If you mean not raising prices from what Disney+hulu costs, they probably will combine them for that price (or the bundle with ESPN)

But no, not for the price of Disney+

Honestly they should just consolidate. That's probably part of why they're doing this. Like Discovery and HBO, running two services is expensive... I fully expect Discovery+ to shut down entirely once behind the scenes content deals are over

Would this be a potential push to form a monopoly?

How so? They already had a majority stake in Hulu as part of the Fox acquisition. Originally Hulu was 30% Disney, 30% Fox, 30% Comcast, 10% private equity. Hulu purchased back that 10% stake before Disney purchased Fox.

When the Fox deal closed Disney owned 70% of the company, and it was announced that the earliest they could buy out Comcast's stake was 2023/2024. The writing has been on the wall ever since.

A Disney monopoly in streaming? Further consolidation wouldn’t be the worst thing at this point. There are too many competing services.

So just cable 2.0, I'm sure they wouldn't screw us again right? /s

Have you looked at Hulu’s add-ons? You can get sports packages, movie packages, random-ass-bunch-of-channels packages. Sound familiar?

This is just techbros inventing stuff... They invented taxi (Uber), bed and breakfast accomodation (Airbnb), food delivery etc...

Hulu was always Disney though. It was there content that started with it. Buying Fox was the consolidation.

Don't they already basically have a monopoly? They can do anything they want, they own almost everything and are too big to fail.

They've won the game at that point. Only Paramount and Netflix will be the holdouts, and this all just turns into another $100/mo package like cable.

Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime aren't going anywhere since their parent companies have infinite money to burn on streaming. For this reason alone I think these two services are more likely to survive in the long run than Disney+ or Netflix. There's also Max, which has some great content but I'm not as confident it'll still be around in 10 years.

In Europe there is also sky, who has all rights on HBO stuff here and thus can hold out despite its terrible player. Also DAZN for sport events. Both are imo completely relying on third parties though (sky on HBO and dazn on the leagues).

Comcast has mostly moved over to using Peacock already, I think. Warner Bros is also separated with Max. And of course Amazon/MGM is doing their own thing as well.

How was there ever an end where a 100 dollar a month cable package is cheaper than all TV programmers having to make their own apps and direct to consumer distribution channels. It's all the same TV with more operational overhead than having cable be the single pipe to distribute all content. The difference was steaming used to augment cable revenue. Now it is replacing cable revenue and that revenue goal hasn't changed.

I remember back in 2008 it was free and that's how I watched all of Veronica Mars

I've been looking into setting up a home server with Jellyfin and qBittorrent, so this just makes me feel better about that decision

I can upgrade my internet to gigabit and get rid of my two streaming services and save money. Win win, imo

Throw in overseerr/jellyseerr, sonarr, radarr, jackett/prowlarr, and you're cookin' with gas!

Are there any communities around here that would help a novice set all that up? I happily pay for a VPN, not paying everyone a subscription fee

homelab@lemmy.ml and selfhosted@lemmy.world are pretty active.

Do you have any self-hosting experience? I can point you to a few places based on your experience level. I'm also happy to help you get set up -- there's plenty of ways to run that stack with pros and cons depending on your comfort-level.

In the uk Hulu stuff is already on Disney+ as "Star". I imagine they want that in the US as well since it gives a lot of value to Disney+. I think it's better however... Monopolies and all that.

For all the stuff Disney own, there sure is a lot of fuck all new on Disney+.

They're relying on their stupidly big back catalogue.

Yeah it is a bit of a trickle, but I personally don't mind it since I'm not a binge watcher anymore. I enjoy focusing on one or two shows at a time and if theyre releasing weekly, even better.

Do what you want cuz a pirate is free.

I wish I could but I don't have the necessary skill set to sail the seas. I've never understood how some users were able to travel or use the system differently than others. For example, Ive played Zelda for months, and everything I build is utter crap compared to what I see in Top Gaming Plays. Some people are just wired differently. I've put in the same amount of time as other players and while they are flying around in jets I've got two fans and a flystick.

The FTC, "But Market consultation is great for the consumer, right?"

Neat. I cancelled Hulu a few months ago, and this doesn’t make me regret my decision. I like some Disney content, but they’re corporate vultures and, based on their practices, they don’t deserve any loyalty.

And Comcast, of course, can fuck themselves to death. I wish this wasn’t an amicable takeover and Comcast would lose badly, but that’s just my murderous mouse fanfic.

I dispise Comcast because anything dealing with customer service takes fucking hours. Once youve spent a good hour dicking around on chat, you will search the internet for a live operator number. This will also take an absurd amount of time while you get switched from accounts to tech support. Seriously can't stand it. Only game in town really, and they still suck.

There’s kind of a cheat code.

First, always call, don’t bother with chat. The first prompt you get, say ‘agent’. Don’t say anything else, and keep saying that until you get a live person (it should only take 1-3 times in the menu.

Once you have a person, threaten to cancel your service. You have to mean it (I always mean it if I’ve got to this point). They will escalate you to the customer retention team and they will listen.

e: oh, and also be nice, but firm. Angry tirades never work, but exasperated friendliness does.

Thanks for the walkthrough. I haven't decided whether I am going to pull the trigger or just return the equipment so this may help.

It’s worth trying, even if you think you’ll end up cancelling anyhow. The last time I had to deal with them, they dropped my monthly bill from $150 to $80 for their highest speed broadband, and now I get roughly 1gb download speed for $80/mo. (eta in case it’s not clear: that wasn’t based on hypothetical sale prices; I’d been paying $150/mo out of pocket for half the speed; I now pay $80/mo for double the speed I had been getting.)

Your results will probably vary – I have 25 years of uninterrupted customer loyalty to leverage. (eta: not like I have a choice where I live, it’s them or dial-up, but their international agents don’t know that lol).

🤞

e: also if you follow this blueprint, let us know if it works. I didn’t come up with this pattern, but it did work for me.

I don't know if my first response went through but I want to take the time and thank you for this well thought out response. It is deeply appreciated.

I'm wondering how this will affect Spotify, because back when I paid for Spotify it came bundled with Hulu.

It shouldn't. They're both separate entities and remain so, they just bundled themselves to entice customers.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The entertainment giant announced Wednesday that it “expects it will pay” $8.61 billion to acquire Comcast’s 33 percent stake, giving Disney full ownership of Hulu.

Both Disney and Comcast agreed to an appraisal process that will evaluate Hulu’s equity fair value as of September 30th.

The deal was initially set to take place in 2024, but Comcast and Disney agreed to move the date to September 30th.

“That was just a hypothetical that we picked five years ago,” said Comcast CEO Brian Roberts during an investors conference in September.

With Hulu barely seeing a shift in subscribers last quarter, Disney announced a price hike across all of its streaming services and hinted at a password-sharing crackdown.

Disclosure: Comcast’s NBCU division is a minority investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

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