How Does Rollout of Hulu on Disney+ Compare with Last Year’s Max Launch?

It’s official! The beta testing phase of Hulu content on Disney+ is over, and the full Hulu on Disney+ experience is now available. The one-app experience first promised by Disney in May 2023 is now a fully realized product, and its launch is highly reminiscent of another recent combination of streaming services. Warner Bros. Discovery launched its integrated streaming product Max — which combined content from the former HBO Max platform with lifestyle and unscripted titles appearing on discovery+ — in 2023, and it’s worth revisiting that rollout to see how well Disney has (or has not) managed the launch of Hulu on Disney+.

• Disney has avoided many issues experienced during the Max rollout, including the restriction of content inappropriate for children.
• Hulu content is clearly advertised on the Disney+ home screen, in order to make content discovery easier.
• Warner Bros. Discovery’s tactics for canceling streaming titles have also differed from Disney’s.

There are plenty of comparison points to make between the launch of Hulu on Disney+ and last year’s introduction of Max. Likely the most important issue on many parents’ minds has been the availability of age-inappropriate content for kids; Hulu carries a wide range of titles that include nudity and sexual content, adult language, and violence that would seemingly be at odds with the family-friendly image that Disney+ initially launched with.

Disney began rolling out Hulu on Disney+ in a public beta test in December, and one of its stated goals for giving the experience a long test was to ensure that its parental controls were working properly. This stands in stark contrast to the launch of Max, which saw numerous titles rated PG-13 embedded in the new streamer’s “Kids & Family” content row.

This was a critical aspect of the Hulu on Disney+ experience for Disney to get right. Disney+ has earned its reputation as a good streaming platform for children, with strong parental controls and a policy that sees kids’ content stream without advertisements, even on the ad-supported Disney+ Basic plan. Disney had to ensure its system for keeping inappropriate programming away from children was airtight before it could offer Hulu titles on Disney+, and at launch, it appears it has accomplished that goal.

Does Hulu on Disney+ Make Content Discovery Easy?

The ‘Hulu Highlights’ row is prominently placed on the Disney+ user interface to help customers find new content.
Disney has harnessed its content rows to help steer customers to newly imported Hulu content. Hulu titles feature prominently in the streamer’s “Newly Added” row, and beneath that is a selection of “Hulu Highlights” that feature popular titles like “Abbott Elementary” which air first on ABC, allowing Disney to promote its linear channels within its streaming environment.

Hulu content is also featured prominently in the content carousel at the top of the home screen. Hulu’s latest smash-hit “Shōgun” is the first title featured at the top of the page at launch, and viewers can scroll down just one row to find the Hulu tile. Clicking that tile takes the user to the Hulu hub on Disney+, where they can scroll through rows like “Classic Sitcoms,” “Blockbuster Movies,” and more.

This layout is similar to the interface that Max launched with as it attempted to seamlessly integrate discovery+ titles into the larger HBO and WBD flagship platform. Upon launch, Max created dedicated tiles for brands from across the WBD landscape including HGTV, Food Network, and Magnolia Network so that browsers could more quickly find content that they were interested in, even if they were not accustomed to it being on the HBO Max/Max service.

Like WBD, Disney did not import customer watch histories from its smaller platform onto its newly merged service. Viewers cannot see their Hulu watch history when they log into their Disney+ account to watch Hulu content, at least not yet. Max similarly did not incorporate viewing histories from discovery+ onto Max, and it may be that the technical problems created by attempting to make such a move between two services built on different tech stacks are simply too complex for the time being.

How Has Disney Managed its Relationships with Content Creators?

One of the biggest gaffes associated with the Max rollout was a mistake that most subscribers likely never noticed, but made the artists who worked on the titles available on the platform livid. When it launched, Max replaced writer and producer lists with a generic “Creator” title. This ruffled quite a few feathers from production crews who felt their efforts had been slighted, but it took more than a month for Max to start fixing the issue.

WBD’s relationships with many content creators were already on thin ice at the time, thanks to well-publicized cuts that saw the nearly-finished “Batgirl” movie tossed in the dumpster in favor of a tax write-down and numerous cancelations and streaming removals. WBD CEO David Zaslav’s defiant attitude in the face of criticism regarding those cuts rankled more than a few of WBD’s creative partners, which is one reason the rollout of the “Creator” label on Max became such a problem for some directors, writers, and producers.

Disney has also found itself canceling some projects already in various stages of production in recent months, as it tries to trim down streaming expenses and make that segment of its company profitable. Unlike WBD, however, Disney has made these moves quietly. There has been no brash rhetoric from Disney CEO Bob Iger about the cancelations, and no truncating of credits for Hulu or Disney+ titles on the combined streaming platform.

It appears that Disney took plenty of lessons from WBD when considering the best way to offer an integrated streaming product. The Hulu on Disney+ experience seems to have replicated the best content discoverability tactics from Max, but unlike that streamer has done the work to ensure kids are never offered content that isn’t appropriate for their age group. Disney has also kept good relationships with its content partners, even in the face of content cuts and canceled productions.