Disney Preparing To Sunset Hulu App
Over the past couple of years, Disney has slowly been making changes to its streaming business, as it moves the company from losing billions of dollars each year on their platforms to profitability.
Until last year, Disney wasn’t fully able to take advantage of the Hulu streaming service and brand, as Comcast still owned a third of the platform, but a deal made back in 2019, meant that in 2024, Disney could finally activate a clause to buy out Comcast’s stake, which it has finally done, just at a cost of around $8 billion.
When Disney+ first launched, it was positioned as a family-friendly service, while Hulu had all the content for adults, but operating two very different streaming services wasn’t working as planned. Disney+ didn’t have the depth of content required to compete with Netflix or Amazon Prime. It was heavily reliant on Star Wars and Marvel shows, but by overdoing the amount of shows and films being released, both of those brands became damaged. So Disney shifted its focus back to letting its studios do what they do best.
One of the ways Disney has been doing this is by bringing Disney+ and Hulu closer together, as it looks to consolidate to help save money by investing in fewer original shows and the technical costs involved in running a streaming service. It’s been over two years since Hulu content was available within Disney+ for bundled subscribers, with Disney CEO Bob Iger previously stating that they are planning on having a unified app experience, with Hulu incorporated into Disney+. We’ve also seen more new original shows and films shared between both platforms, and Disney+ is constantly being updated with new features, many of which have already been available on Hulu.
Internationally, this has been the case for over five years, as Disney+ introduced the Star hub in 2021, with access to Disney’s more mature content from studios like 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, FX and ABC. Late last year, Disney rebranded Star to Hulu around the world, showing that Disney’s long-term plan was always to merge Hulu into Disney+.
We’ve seen Disney launch its MyDisney login system, unifying Hulu and Disney+ accounts, along with changes to how the ad system for both platforms is now the same. We’ve also seen many changes to the leadership, with executives now running both platforms, rather than an executive for each.
Recently, Disney announced that Hulu subscribers could now link their profiles to their Disney+, with other features such as Hulu + Live TV and premium add-ons also set to be added to Disney+ later this year.
With Disney purchasing a huge stake in Fubo TV, which it quickly moved the Hulu + Live TV side of the business into, along with the CEO of Fubo talking about the benefits of adding their platform to Disney+ and potentially launching in more countries, the future of Hulu + Live TV could easily be rebranded to Fubo, to separate the branding away from Hulu.
While Disney has been vocal about keeping Hulu around, according to a new report by the Business Insider, Disney is preparing to eventually sunset the Hulu stand-alone app and has a multi-phased plan called “Project Gemini” in place to bring Hulu’s content and features to Disney+. This unified experience is expected to be completed by year’s end.
Apparently, “The Hulu tech stack and app will be decommissioned after all users have transitioned”. Three different Disney tech employees have said that the company is diverting resources away from Hulu and isn’t adding major new features to the app anymore.
“Hulu is on life support at this point, with no active development”.
Once Hulu is fully integrated into Disney+, there would be little reason for the stand-alone Hulu app to exist, the three Disney employees said.
“Trying to maintain two separate pipelines doesn’t make sense,”
Another said that “lots of moving pieces need to be migrated,” though. There are apparently fewer people working on the Hulu app, so any bugs are taking longer to fix, as more of them are working on the Disney+ side. There have also been job cuts across the company to reduce staffing levels.
The writing has been on the wall for years that Hulu would eventually be phased out. Disney has spent years slowly getting Disney+ users to experience Hulu content, and every move seems to be to get to a point that when it’s finally announced, most people will just say, “that makes sense”, and carry on regardless. However, some within the company have been arguing over the shift, as some executives have been hesitant “to kick a bunch of people off a platform that was heavily used,” while company leadership broadly was focused on unifying the streaming experience “for discoverability and cost reduction.”
While Disney has said publicly that it isn’t planning on closing down the Hulu app, generally, Disney doesn’t make statements about anything until it’s ready to do so, or until it reaches that point in the plan. Not all Hulu features are available on Disney+, and many Hulu subscribers still aren’t using Disney+. So it’s easy to see why Disney is hesitant to make any major announcements about Hulu until they are ready, as they don’t want millions of people to start unsubscribing from Hulu.
Ultimately, I’ve been saying for years that Disney has been treating its US subscribers like frogs in a pot, slowly bringing the heat up, so customers hopefully don’t notice anything different, as the changes aren’t as jarring. There are daily reports on social media of some customers getting annoyed that Disney+ isn’t just “kids” content anymore, and don’t like the Hulu content in there. But in reality, this system has been working for over five years on Disney+ internationally, improving engagement and reducing churn.
Disney’s already run the trial for years, and every step we’ve seen Disney take over the last five years has been building up to the merger of the two.
When will Disney finally pull the trigger and merge Hulu into Disney+? Who knows, but the signs have been there for years. They are investing heavily in the Disney+ app and getting audiences to link the two brands together. We’re likely going to see Paramount+ and HBO Max undergo a similar merger in the future, as trying to compete with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video requires something bigger. Hulu and Disney+ together offer a much more balanced content slate, especially when you throw ESPN into the mix. Disney might be saying “there are no current plans to sunset” Hulu, but all the signs point to it happening eventually.
When do you think Hulu will merge into Disney+? Let me know on social media!
