- Disney Unlikely to Sell Off TV Assets Following Hulu Purchase
- Statement from Bob Iger
- Disney Stock Price – DIS
Disney CEO Bob Iger has walked back previous considerations of spinning off the company’s TV assets from its streaming business, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Disney Unlikely to Sell Off TV Assets Following Hulu Purchase
In the wake of a finalized deal with Comcast for ownership of Hulu, Disney has stated they are no longer considering splitting off their linear TV networks. CEO Bob Iger first floated the idea in 2023, when he mentioned that, amid other restructuring efforts, the company was investigating several possibilities, including selling off its linear networks like ABC.
At that time, both cable and streaming were on a decline. Iger also reported that Disney was trying to determine whether it would try to buy Hulu or sell their shares. Now, Iger says that their research determined the best action was to purchase full ownership in Hulu and keep their networks.
Statement from Bob Iger
Iger gave the following statement to David Faber in a recent interview:
“Soon after I returned to Disney, I put everything on the table and asked the team to evaluate whether we should buy Hulu or whether we should sell Hulu, whether we should sell our linear television networks or whether we should hold on to them, and after a pretty lengthy process internally, and really taking a long look at what these properties could mean to us, long term, we decided that the best course for us to take was to not only buy [Hulu] in its entirety, but also to hold on to the linear television networks and to integrate them seamlessly with our streaming business. What that has enabled us to do is aggregate revenue, both on the sub fee side and on the advertising side. There is still enough linear television subscribers to generate a significant amount of revenue in advertising and in subscription fees. We program them seamlessly, we manage them in one organization. And so there’s been great economies of scale in doing that.”
This statement comes in the wake of HBO and Comcast’s announcements regarding splitting off some of their own linear networks. Iger noted that “these spin-off companies won’t have the assets from a streaming perspective that we will have.”
Disney Stock Price – DIS
6 month trend of Disney Stock as Bob Iger as Bob Iger reconsiders splitting off their linear TV networks.
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