• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, September 15, 2022

In what may be attempts to influence expectations as they set the stage for serious negotiations, the CEOs of Comcast and Disney engaged in dueling observations about Hulu this week.

As part of Disney’s acquisition of 21^st Century Fox in 2019, Disney increased its stake in Hulu to 67% and Comcast agreed to sell its remaining 33% stake to Disney no later than 2024, for a price of no less than $27.5 billion. Disney has full operational control of the streaming service.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology conference on Wednesday, Bob Chapek, CEO of Disney, acknowledged that Disney will need to have full ownership of Hulu before it can proceed with its plan to integrate it into Disney+, and would like to secure that earlier than 2024, if possible. 

“We would love to get to the end point earlier, but that obviously takes some level of propensity for the other party to have reasonable terms for us to get there,” he said. “I would be more than happy to try to facilitate that.” 

In a subsequent Q&A at the conference with Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, Roberts said he takes “great exception” to comments Chapek made earlier this week in the Financial Times, in which he suggested that Hulu’s value may have declined due to a cooling of “market sentiment” toward streaming services since the 2019 deal was struck. 

“Hulu is a phenomenal business,” Roberts said. “Its scale is fantastic. It has wonderful content. And I believe if it [were] put up for sale, Comcast would be interested, and so would a lot of other tech and media companies. You would have robust auction. There's never been a pure-play, fabulous, scaled streaming service put on the market. So I don't know that the public markets are the way to judge the value.

“Disney has the right to buy us out... And of course, we were always happy to talk about it. But the value that we structured into the agreement anticipates that robust auction for 100% of the company, as a going concern... And we [will] get our fair share of that... about one-third of the equity. So I think it's got tremendous value, and I'm sure our shareholders share that belief.”

Asked if Comcast would actually buy Hulu outright if it had the opportunity, Roberts said: “That question is up to Disney. But either way, the value of 100% of Hulu is what we're entitled to. But if it were for sale, we certainly, and I think others, would also want to get into that opportunity. But I think that our position is very enviable in what's right for our shareholders and the great company that Hulu is. They've done a spectacular job.”