Disney Looking To Make The Hulu + Live TV Experience Better
As cord-cutting continues to become the norm, more people are leaving traditional cable platforms, many users are moving to streaming alternatives such as YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, and Fubo TV.
Currently, Hulu + Live TV has around four and a half million subscribers, only 100,000 more than two years ago. This highlights that there’s not a huge amount of growth within this industry as more people realise they don’t need live television in the same way they have for decades.
Disney was looking to team up with Warner Brothers Discovery and FOX to launch Venu Sports, offering a skinny sports bundle via streaming, which caught the attention of many sports fans, since it would offer most of the live sports they wanted, without the bloat of paying for channels they didn’t want.
But as you might expect, the launch of Venu Sports didn’t go down well with other companies offering linear channels since they couldn’t offer a skinny sports bundle. This resulted in a lawsuit from Fubo TV that saw the launch of Venu Sports put on hold. Months later, the project completely fell apart following a failed appeal and the likelihood that the lawsuit would cause the companies more hassle than it was financially worth.
Just prior to the announcement that the launch of Venu Sports would be cancelled, Disney announced it was partnering with Fubo TV, taking a 70% stake in the television streaming business. Subject to regulatory approvals, Disney plans to combine Fubo TV with Hulu + Live TV.
Disney CEO Bob Iger also explained why they decided to bail on the launch of Venu Sports, which was originally going to launch last year and combine all of Disney’s ESPN, Warner Brothers Discovery and FOX sports content together in a skinny bundle.
Look, what essentially happened is after the decision was made and we started to implement the launch of Venu, the emergence of these skinnier bundles surfaced and Venue basically looked redundant to us.
During that same Q&A session, Bob Iger explained why they decided to make the deal with Fubo.
And so this was a great opportunity for us to make ESPN available to multiple skinny bundles and then to actually merge the Hulu Live and the Fubo essentially channel business as one, because frankly, while we like being in that business, it wasn’t a core business to Hulu. This gives us the ability to actually enhance the Hulu Live experience because the combination the combined entity, when it’s approved, will spend more time, put more resources into the user interface and essentially making the former Hulu Live experience better for consumers.
No doubt, the massive lawsuit from Fubo TV was also an issue, and this new deal settled that situation and also offered an opportunity for Disney to solve its Hulu + Live TV business, which wasn’t growing and didn’t seem like a natural fit within a potential combined Hulu and Disney+. Moving the Hulu + Live TV element into Fubo, bringing together over 6 million subscribers, helps them on many levels. It is also interesting how Iger refers to it as the former Hulu Live experience, indicating that they’ll possibly move onto the Fubo brand.
Disney has said that Fubo and Hulu + Live TV will continue to be available to consumers as separate offerings after the deal is done, but it does seem unlikely this will continue too much longer since, together, they will benefit from many synergies to save money.
It makes sense for some technical changes to Hulu + Live TV when combined with Fubo TV, but it will take some time for approval, allowing the Fubo and Hulu tech teams to devise a plan to improve things for the viewer.
Roger’s Take: The idea of Venu Sports always sounded like a last-ditch effort to keep cable customers locked into a bundle, and with sports sliding further onto streaming platforms, having Disney offset the Hulu + Live TV business into Fubo, will no doubt help the streaming division become more profitable, letting the Fubo management team deal with a combined offering. I also think moving Hulu + Live TV into the Fubo TV app will allow Disney to eventually merge Hulu into Disney+, consolidating multiple different apps and making it more cost-effective, plus easier on consumers.
What do you think about Hulu + Live TV combined with Fubo TV? Let me know on social media!
