Disney’s approach with the Disney+ streaming service has so far been a major success and beyond their expectations, however there are still a couple of lingering issues that remain.
One is the obvious question of new content, or rather the lack thereof so far in the service’s first year. Then there’s the fact Disney is sitting on a ton of Fox’s library content and not doing much with it, combined with chatter about a potential adult-targeted section on the service.
While there’s plenty who say just save the Fox, adult and non-family oriented stuff for Hulu, that service remains very much confined to the U.S. and only a tiny handful of other countries as opposed to the more aggressive global reach strategy of Disney+ which is now in dozens of countries.
Now, Collider reports that “multiple Hulu executives have been leaving or let go” from that service in anticipation of a potential major shift – one that could see the 36 million subscriber Hulu being folded into the 74 million subscriber Disney+ service. Such a merger would answer almost all of those lingering questions and make Disney+ an even more attractive proposition on Wall Street.
However it would also add new questions namely over the financials that come with losing Hulu as a separate entity, questions over adult content, complications related to Hulu’s Live component, and obvious branding issues – remember the fate of “Love, Victor” which was sent to Hulu because Disney was afraid of upsetting the more delicate members of its userbase.
The speculation from the outlet comes ahead of a Disney investor conference this coming week which is where we expect to hear Disney’s response to this week’s WarnerMedia HBO Max bombshell.