Disney and Comcast have made an announcement of a deal that results in Disney gaining complete operational control over Hulu. The deal makes a promise that Comcast would sell their Hulu stake to Disney within the next five years for an amount of at least $9.2 billion. This does not come up without any kind of consequence for the subscribers of Hulu. The NBCUniversal of Comcast will have the right to cancel out most of their agreements related to content licensing with Hulu by the year 2022 as part of this particular deal.
Now, the NBCUniversal programming, which was earlier licensed exclusively to Hulu could get pulled into within one year. It shows that the content would show up even on other streaming services. Where Disney will begin to have full control over Hulu, the NBCUniversal of Comcast retain their pre-existing 33% ownership interest in Hulu. Still, Comcast might need Disney to purchase the interest of NBCU in Hulu starting as early as January 2024. Incidentally, Disney might even require NBCUniversal to sell off their 33% interest to Disney for their fair-market-value by that exact time.
Disney has also guaranteed Comcast with a sale price for their stake in Hulu, which will be representative of the valuation of this service for at least $27.5 billion. Now, with the ownership of Comcast settled at 33%, it clearly means that their stake would be valued at a minimum of $9.2 billion when the sale takes place in 2024. As Disney now has full control over Hulu, there is no need to say how it would have an effect on the content distribution methods of Disney as they go on to operate both Hulu as well as their upcoming Disney+ streaming service.