Disney will own 70% of Fubo after receiving permission from the Justice Department’s antitrust division. The move will form the second-biggest live TV streaming provider in the country, with 6 million subscribers between the two services.
Are the Hulu and Fubo apps combining?
This deal does not mean the end of Fubo or Hulu as separate apps. The Hulu app is being sunsetted though, as part of Disney’s overall strategy that integrates the service into the Disney+ app. Fubo’s app will continue to be its own portal.
Could they combine in the future? It would not be a surprise. At the moment, while it owns the majority of the company, 30 percent of Fubo is still owned by its original shareholders.
Expect a buyout
We have seen this story before with Disney. Hulu was originally owned by Disney/ABC, Newscorp/Fox and Comcast/NBC, with each owning a third of the company. Later, Time Warner got in on the game with a 10 percent stake. Time Warner sold back its shares to the big three on its way to a merger with Discovery Networks, which formed WBD and beefed up HBO Max app to make it a formal Hulu competitor. Disney merged with 20th Century Fox, which made Disney the majority shareholder of Hulu and later as part of a deal with Comcast, bought the NBC owner out of Hulu on its way to becoming its sole owner of the streamer in June.
This is how we got to a place with Hulu, Peacock, Fox One and HBO Max.
Therefore, I surmise that even though there is no public conversation around it at the moment, we should expect to see Disney buy the rest of the company in the future.
Will prices change?
The only verbiage around pricing and packages for Hulu and Fubo customers at the moment is that there will be options “from skinny to robust at compelling price points.” Disney has also not quite explained how customers of one service will bennifit from the other? Will Hulu’s on demand content merge with Fubo’s on-demand content in each app? Will customers be able to use the same login for the same service? Will Fubo be part of the Disney ID like ESPN’s apps, and Disney+? These are all questions that will be answered over time.
What are the differences between Hulu with Live TV and Fubo?
On the service, both services look the same, at least to those who are not zeroed in on them, which is everyone that isn’t doing the same thing as I am right now. The biggest differences are that the two services have some key rights agreement differences, with Fubo offering more varied international sports options, and even granular sports-based searches. For instance, a user can browse pro basketball and find offerings from multiple pro basketball leagues from the NBA to Euro leagues and everything in between, while Hulu with Live TV has a sports category where you would find the ESPN networks, Fox Sports etc. Fubo is also one of the few providers that still offers regional sports networks, the type that zero in on specific teams.
How do we think it will all end up?
I think eventually Disney will own the whole shebang and push it all out of one app. There will be packages that give users all of the broadcast channels and all of the sports channels between the two offerings. There will be general entertainment packages that look like what Philo does etc. I don’t know if the service will be called Hulu with live TV or Fubo. But my guess is that eventually Hulu will go back to its roots as an on-demand service and brand Fubo as the TV provider, but that’s just me riffing at this point.
Either way, this move changes the game in streaming and continues the consolidation of services.
