Answering Questions About Disney+, Hulu’s ‘One-App Experience’; Will All Content Be Included? What About Hulu + Live TV?

For a long time, it was considered an eventuality, but recent comments put into doubt whether or not Disney would ever blend its two entertainment-focused streaming services into a single experience. On Wednesday, Disney CEO Bob Iger put to bed those doubts as he announced that by the end of 2023, Hulu and Disney+ content would be available in a “one-app experience” in the United States, similar to how it is in regions around the world.

While Disney+ and Hulu — as well as the sports-focused ESPN+ — will all remain available in their current standalone versions, this evolution will remove some of the pain points that customers can experience in having to navigate from one service to another in order to stream the titles that they want.

“This is a logical progression of our DTC [direct-to-consumer] offerings,” Iger said, “while giving bundle subscribers access to more robust and streamlined content, resulting in greater audience engagement and ultimately leading to a more unified streaming experience.”

Despite the CEO’s excitement about the potential of connecting the two services, there are a lot of questions that still remain about how this will work for customers; some of those have already been answered, while others will need to be addressed in the weeks and months leading up to the rollout.

We will try to provide some clarity on the outstanding questions about the integration of Disney+ and Hulu:

Will Hulu Be Available to Everyone Who Subscribes to Disney+?

This was one of the questions that Iger did actually answer on Wednesday. As of now, this unified option will not simply fold all of Hulu into Disney+. Instead, it will be an opportunity for customers who subscribe to both Hulu and Disney+ via the Disney Bundle to access each service from a single app.

“On the integrated app experience that we announced today, that’s for consumers that have subscribed to both services for now,” Iger said. “So in other words, it’s taking what we call the ‘dual bundle’ and putting it together in one experience, which is obviously good for consumers … It’s a bigger platform, basically more content than it offered before.”

So, customers who are only signed up for only Disney+ or Hulu will not be receiving access to any additional content at this point, but instead, those that already are subscribed to both will be getting a more streamlined experience by being able to bounce back and forth between titles on each of the existing platforms.

What Will the Cost of a Combined Disney+ and Hulu Be?

During the conference call with investors and analysts following Wednesday’s release of Disney’s most recent earnings report, Iger indicated that there will be another price increase to the Disney+ ad-free plan, following the rate hike that accompanied the introduction of the ad-supported tier in December. However, that is separate from the linking of Disney+ and Hulu.

Because what was announced will simply provide a gateway from one content library to the other for existing subscribers, there will not be an additional corresponding fee — or discount — associated with the move. Of course, in order to have access to Iger’s new “one-app experience,” customers are already receiving a discount on the streaming services thanks to the Disney Bundle.

Individually, Disney+’s ad-supported Basic plan costs $7.99 per month, while the ad-free Premium option is $10.99 monthly or $109.99 annually. Similarly, Hulu’s ad-supported tier is also $7.99 per month, but the ad-free plan runs $14.99 monthly. You can sign up for the ad-supported option for $79.99 annually.

However, when you subscribe to the Disney Bundle Duo Basic, you receive ad-supported options of both streamers for just $9.99 per month; a savings of $5.99 per month. If you add in ESPN+ to make it the Trio Basic, it costs just $12.99 monthly — ESPN+ is $9.99 per month. That represents a 50% savings of $12.98 monthly.

To get ad-free experiences on Disney+ and Hulu — since a large percentage of ESPN+’s programming is live sports, there is no ad-free option for that service — you would need to sign up for the Disney Bundle Trio Premium, which runs $19.99 per month; a $15.98 per month savings from subscribing to each service individually.

Will the Combined Disney+ and Hulu Include Hulu + Live TV?

Now we are starting to get into questions that were not specifically answered in Iger’s conference call. We do not exactly know how the one-app experience will work; will it simply place a Hulu tile in the existing Disney+ app and vice versa? Or, will there be a completely new app that requires a Bundle subscription and has all of the programming from both services contained within?

The likeliest answer to those questions is the former, where little will change in terms of Disney’s streaming existing platforms, except that a shortcut is placed in both navigation menus making it easier to move between the services. If this is the case, the Hulu hub in Disney+ should take customers directly to the version of Hulu that they are signed up for. So, if they have Hulu + Live TV, that would be where the button points.

Since the Disney Bundle comes as an extra incentive to customers when they sign up for Hulu + Live TV, if you are signed up to Disney’s live TV streaming service, this new option will likely essentially be built into your subscription.

Will Combined Disney+ and Hulu Include Next-Day TV Shows or Just Hulu Originals?

The answer to this question goes right in line with that of whether Hulu + Live TV will be included in the “one-app experience” or not. Since this will likely be more of a portal between Hulu and Disney+ than a merging of the two streamers, there is no reason to believe that only some of the content on Hulu would be available this way. In fact, I am not even sure how that would work, considering that it is just being built as a way for subscribers of both services to more easily access all of the content that they pay for.

Will Standalone Hulu Remain if Disney Buys Out Comcast’s Share?

As Iger noted in Wednesday's call, preliminary discussions with Comcast have begun about what it will take for Disney to acquire the remaining 33% of Hulu. Starting in early 2024, Disney has the contractual ability to force Comcast to sell its one-third ownership of the streamer at a valuation of $27.5 billion, or $9.2 billion.

The two sides could negotiate a price higher or lower than that, or Comcast could sell to another company if it can’t make a deal with Disney. However, all signs point to the House of Mouse owning all of Hulu by the end of next year.

“How that ultimately unfolds is, to some extent, in the hands of Comcast and in the hands of basically a conversation or a negotiation that we have with them,” Iger said on Wednesday. “I don’t want to be, in any way, predictive in terms of when or how that ends up; I can say, we’ve had some conversations with them already. They’ve been cordial.”

While the CEO did not go into detail about what would happen to Hulu if and when his company secured the remaining portion of the streamer, the seemingly most likely outcome would be that it is completely folded into Disney+ at some point, similar to how Disney arranges its streaming services around the world.

In most international markets, Disney+ includes a tile in its various carousels called “Star,” which sits alongside Marvel, National Geographic, Pixar, Star Wars, and the rest of the company’s branded offerings. This hub includes all of the original programming that lives on Hulu in the U.S. Due to the individual contracts with networks and creators, Star does not provide access to all of the next-day on-demand offerings that Hulu does, but for original films and series, that is where international viewers can find them.

This has been a successful integration for Disney. The company’s flagship streaming service continues to grow internationally, with the regions that include the Star hub growing by 900,000 customers last quarter to come in at 58.6 million.

“It’s just an all-in-one; it’s a bigger platform, basically more content than it offered before,” Iger said of the domestic Hulu and Disney+ integration. “Outside the United States, we created that with Star, which doesn’t have all the programming of Hulu, but it has a significant amount, and it’s working quite well.”

However, should Disney eventually become the full owner of Hulu, there would no longer be anything holding the company back from fully unifying the services domestically or internationally. As has been seen with the forthcoming combination of HBO Max and discovery+ under the newly titled Max streaming service, Warner Bros. Discovery believes that the key to growth and retention in this era of streaming is to provide something for everyone so that your streaming product becomes so indispensable in the lives of consumers that they could never dream of parting with it.

That seems like the most logical next step for Disney as well. While Disney+ already boasts 157.8 million global customers, the goal has shifted from customer acquisition to customer retention, and giving consumers more reasons to open your app and to spend time with your titles (and to watch commercials during your shows), the better it will be for your bottom line.

So, while Iger did not specifically say that Hulu and Disney+ will completely merge into a single service once Disney owns the totality of Hulu, that would seem to be the most likely outcome.

How Will Hulu Joining Disney+ Impact the Disney Bundle?

Since Iger’s “one-app experience” will essentially require customers to be signed up for one Disney Bundle tier or another, in the logistical sense, it won’t really impact it at all, other than to make it a little easier to navigate. Of course, as noted above, the company does plan to increase the price of the ad-free Disney+ tier, which will undoubtedly affect the bundle, but that is something separate from this new integrated streaming option.

So, for now, this likely won’t cause any changes to the Disney Bundle, although if and when Disney takes over full ownership of Hulu and merges the two platforms into one, the shape and efficacy of the bundle will undoubtedly change dramatically.

How Will the Combined Hulu and Disney+ Impact the Ad Experience?

As mentioned before, since this is likely to just be a navigational change making it easier to jump between the existing Disney+ and Hulu platforms, this announcement shouldn’t change the ad experience on either service; at least not for the time being. However, as Disney+ continues to progress in its ad-supported journey, there is the potential for the company to take lessons learned on each platform and apply them to the other.

However, for now, things will likely remain the same. Disney+ has a more minimal ad load compared to Hulu, coming in at around four minutes of commercials per hour, while Hulu runs roughly nine to 10 minutes of ads per hour.

If Disney does decide to make any changes to how it serves commercials, however, the very first thing it needs to do is lower the volume on Hulu ads to come in more like the sensible audio level as heard on Disney+.