Oh, hey, it’s what everybody thought would happen.
Disney has announced plans to combine Hulu and Disney+ into a single service later this year. The “one-app experience”, as CEO Bob Iger calls it, however, is apparently not the end of the singular versions of either application.
While we continue to offer Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ as standalone options, this is a logical progress of our DTC [direct-to-consumer] offerings that will provide greater opportunities for advertisers while giving bundle subscribers access to more robust and streamlined content
Bob Iger
Normally, it wold be expected for them to combine the two and call it good, but they seem to be taking an unusual third measure. regardless, the Disney+Hulu chimera is said to launch later in 2023.
Aside from that, Iger teased a price hike for Disney+’s premium tier from its current price of $10.99 per month or $109.99 per year. Which tracks, as they hiked the price of the standard tier in December 2022 up to the same price as the premium tier currently is from its previous $7.99/$79.99. And while the US currently enjoys an ad-based tier, that same tier will launch in by the end of the year, though there’s no word on cost.
As we look to the future, we will continue optimizing our pricing model to reward loyalty and reduce churn to increase subscriber revenue for the premium ad-free tier and drive growth of subscribers who opt for the lower-cost ad-supported option
Bob Iger
Disney isn’t the only one doing this, either (though their approach seems to be unique). HBO Max and Discovery+ will be smushed into a single service titled Max in the coming weeks. And Paramount is fusing Paramount+ and Showtime together as the cleverly titled Paramount+ with Showtime.
If I were a betting man, I’d say this is a test for just tossing everything into a single service for Disney. It’s hard to imagine that, in a hilarious twist, Disney wants to pay for Hulu when they can simply take their Hulu content and toss it onto something they own wholly. It’s possible they can’t just do that, however, until the deal is officially passed, so weird half-measures ahoy.
Source: PC Mag
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