Analysis: Potential Combined Hulu, Disney+ Service Would Own Most Top U.S. Titles

Perhaps no media company will bear more watching over the next few months than the Walt Disney Company. The House of Mouse announced on Nov. 20 that it was showing CEO Bob Chapek the door, and former CEO Bob Iger would be taking the corporate reins once again.

One of Chapek’s stated goals, when he was in charge, was a possible combination of the company’s two streaming platforms, Hulu and Disney+. If that plan goes ahead despite Chapek’s exit, it would give the combined service a powerful content library. According to a report from Ampere Analysis, a combined offering of Disney+ and Hulu would account for the largest share of the 100 most popular movies and TV series of any U.S. subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service.

The combined service would account for 30% of the most popular titles. The next-closest competitor would be Netflix, which has 23% of the most popular titles in the U.S. HBO Max is next on the list with 14%, with the other major streamers in the U.S. claiming between 6% and 9% each.

Hulu would have to combat the exodus of titles that it has seen over the past year to keep its percentage of popular titles high, however. It lost well-loved NBC titles like “The Voice,” “The Blacklist,” and “Chicago Fire” when NBCUniversal migrated its content to its own streamer Peacock earlier this year.

Other media companies have also been removing their content from Hulu. Combined content from NBCUniversal, Paramount Global, and Warner Bros. Discovery now makes up less than 10% of all TV shows and movies on the service as they try to bring their content to their own platforms. Meanwhile, the proportion of Hulu’s catalog to which Disney owns the distribution rights has tripled since September 2016, from 6% of all movies and TV shows to 19% by September 2022.

“The threat of further popular or critically acclaimed titles leaving Hulu for rival platforms is a concern as engaging content is critical for subscriber retention, especially as the US SVoD market nears saturation,” Ampere analyst Christen Tamisin said. “This risk makes the argument for Disney to merge Hulu and Disney+ into a single platform stronger.”

The merging of Disney+ and Hulu would have to wait until Disney acquires the remaining third of Hulu that it does not currently own from Comcast, but that purchase is contractually due to take place before 2024, and Disney could potentially close the deal sooner.

The real X-factor in the Hulu-Disney+ merger discussion is Iger. His return to the top chair at Disney may signal a speeding-up of the timeline for Disney+ and Hulu, or it may mean he wants to take the services in different directions than Chapek had planned. Since Disney+ is due to launch an ad-supported tier on Dec. 8, it shouldn’t take long to determine how dramatically Iger intends to shake up the plans of his predecessor.

A combined Hulu-Disney+ would have incredibly strong content offerings, but only time will tell if such a service is a part of Iger’s corporate vision.