Disney to Make Hulu Available Internationally With Heavy Investment

AceShowbiz
Disney is gearing up its own streaming service Disney Plus, but it seemingly doesn’t stop the studio from investing in its other streaming service. Disney reportedly is planning to put out a big investment in Hulu, which 60% of the stock is already own by Disney following the buyout of 21st Century Fox.

Disney chairman-CEO Bob Iger revealed the plan during this week’s earnings call with investors. He said that the new plan included investing in more original content in Hulu as well as expanding the service internationally. In addition, Disney would be open to acquiring more of a stake in Hulu.


“Given the success of Hulu so far in terms of subscriber growth and the relative brand strength and other things too like demographics, we think there’s an opportunity to increase investment in Hulu notably on the programming side,” Iger said.

The international market expansion is poised to make Hulu a compatible competitor for Netflix, which is immensely growing due to its intenational market. It’s reported that Hulu will have more series from FX and Fox in an attempt to substantially increase subscriber counts.

It remains to be seen whether Hulu will invest in more foreign original series for its international subscribers just like Netflix does with planned “Pacific Rim” and “Altered Carbon” animated projects. However, Iger shared that there would be always possibility to it as those conversations will happen once the company takes majority control of Hulu.

“After the deal closes and after we have the 60 percent ownership, we’ll meet with the Hulu management team and the board, and discuss what the opportunities are in terms of both global growth and investing more in content,” he told the investors. “But that’s something that we have to do after the deal closes.”

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