Ha, yeah, that's what I'm proposing. Sounds a little crazy, I know, but Disney didn't really have a choice about buying Comcast's one-third stake in Hulu. The sale was pre-ordained by a contract struck a few years ago; either side could have forced the sale to happen come 2024. But I think it's highly unlikely that Disney would have agreed to buying the rest of Hulu at this point if they didn't have to. They simply don't need it because they have Disney+, which in similar foreign markets (e.g. UK) has proven itself able to carry a selection of adult-focused content under the Star brand section of the app, thereby broadening the app's overall appeal.
I'm not saying that Disney gains *nothing* by owning Hulu outright. But if the end goal is to migrate their subscriber base from a soft bundle (two apps) to a "hard bundle" (one app spanning both brands), well, they didn't really need to spend $8.6 billion to do that, did they? Seems like a lot of money to pay in order to eventually shut down the Hulu app and reduce the brand to a Hulu (rather than Star) tile on the Disney+ home screen.
Disney's CEO has been all over the place recently in terms of long-term strategy, questioning the importance of general entertainment assets like ABC, FX, etc. when Disney's bread-and-butter comes from their Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars brands represented in Disney+ and their theme parks. Almost sounds to me like he's regretting his prior Fox acquisition. But then after the Hulu purchased was announced, he's made more positive comments about the kind of general entertainment content it carries.
All that said, I think if Comcast had been willing to buy Disney's stake in Hulu (rather than the other way around), Disney would have sold it. But, for now, anyway, it seems like Comcast still believes in Peacock, so they didn't want Hulu. But I expect Comcast, as well as WBD and Paramount, to all become increasingly willing to consider other ways to play the streaming game as 2024 unfolds. There's a narrative on Wall Street that's increasingly taking hold, that the streaming wars are over, Netflix has won, and smaller players (including Paramount+, Peacock, and maybe Max) won't be able to survive the coming shake-out.
Consolidation will eventually happen, one way or another. The only choices for these guys may be to merge (risky, because the government probably won't allow), to bow out of SVOD and become content arms dealers (a la Sony), or to cooperate via a joint venture SVOD (like the original Hulu or Sky Showtime, the European JV of Universal and Paramount). Of course, should they pursue the JV route, they could always launch yet another new streaming brand (Universal Warner+, anyone?). But this late in the game, they'd need all the help they can get to succeed. Moving into a service that's already built and popular, and one that also has a successful vMVPD add-on that carries their linear channels, would make a lot of sense, at least if they could buy Hulu at the right price (which, admittedly, may not be possible). We'll see what happens...
