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Disney+ and Hulu Merging Into Single App, Beta Coming in December

MacRumors said:


Disney today said that it will soon combine Disney+ and Hulu into one streaming service, with a unified app to be available in a beta capacity next month.

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Disney CEO Bob Iger first announced plans to merge Hulu and Disney+ into a single app earlier this year. The app will first be offered to those who subscribe to the Disney+ and Hulu bundle, providing those customers with one app to access all their content. Right now, Disney offers a combined bundle that features Disney+ and Hulu, but subscribers need to download two separate apps. Pricing for the app has not been announced, but the current ad-supported Hulu and Disney+ bundle costs $9.99 per month, while the version without ads costs $19.99 per month.

During today's fourth quarter earnings call, Iger confirmed that Disney is on track to roll out the unified app in the United States starting in December, with an official launch to follow in spring 2024.

Disney earlier this month said that it will pay Comcast over $8 billion to purchase Comcast's Hulu shares, which would see Disney being the sole owner of Hulu and will allow for the combined app.

Disney in October increased the price of both Disney+ and Hulu in an effort to bring in more revenue. Ad-free Disney+ is now priced at $13.99 per month, while ad-free Hulu costs $17.99 per month.

Article Link: Disney+ and Hulu Merging Into Single App, Beta Coming in December
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I just cancelled my no ads Hulu / Disney bundle in order to cancel Hulu and resign w/ just Disney. I thought I was out but they just drag me back in.
 
Pakaku said:
Boy, I love hostile takeovers and big businesses getting bigger
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It’s not really a hostile takeover. Disney was 1 of many media companies who started Hulu. All the other partners wanted out to create their own streaming services. Disney wants to keep Hulu because it is a brand they can use to market more adult content without using the Disney branding. It’s very similar to them releasing r movies under buena vista like they did in the 80’s and 90’s
 
This is similar to Paramount+ and Showtime, even though Showtime has an optional subscription, not forced.
 
Boudin said:
Neither of those apps work well on my new AppleTV. Audio-sync issues galore...
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I have no issues with either apps on any of the Apple TV in my house and that includes the newest one and 2 previous generation models
 
JKING3 said:
What happens to both profiles when they merge and what name is it in other places where it merged already
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To use the bundle you have to set both up with the same email address and log in information now
 
JPMichaels said:
I only have HULU and no use for Disney+, so I don't want to pay more so I'll do what most people do, CANCEL IT ALL.

And I hate to beat a dead horse, but if Steve Jobs was still alive, this would all be Apple TV now.
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Y’all love the If Steve was a live bs. How would he have got these wealthy media companies to sell their ip to be all Apple TV. It doesn’t even make sense
 
Michael Scrip said:
With streaming you get to choose which services you want... Netflix or Disney or Peacock, etc. You don't have to subscribe to all of them all at once.

But with cable... the TV portion of your bill is gonna be around $70/month. Always. Plus you might even have to pay extra for crappy DVR boxes. On every TV.

You're right... people complained about cable before... and they still do today. Cable is expensive and you're paying for a bunch of channels you will never watch.

At least with streaming you have some control.
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True you don't have to subscribe to all of them, and I certainly don't. I subscribe to very few actually.

I think the new problem we're finding ourselves in as that with so much new content available now, people are subscribing to platforms for the certain shows offered on them and thus also paying for all the other content on the platform that they don't watch. This to me is not much different than the old problem of paying for cable and only watching a small percentage of the channels. What's different now is that there are many different "cable companies" to choose from, none of which have everything you're looking for.
 
Y'all better get on that Black Friday Hulu deal later this month (IF they're still going to do it - unsure now with these new plans).
 
Vin2015 said:
I just flip flop services every month. I'll have Netflix for a month then I'll subscribe to Paramount for a month and flip to Hulu the next month, and whatever else after that.
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I do that, too, and keep a page in my Notes app listing all the services I'm subscribed to, which are active, what day of the month they renew on, and which shows I'm watching on each. Sometimes I still forget to cancel one when a show I'm watching ends and then I pay for an extra unused month. It feels a bit crazy but I guess it will evolve into something else sooner or later.
 
Disney app is going to turn into an unintelligible maze of roadblocks like the appleTV app.
 
Well that's annoying. I pay for Disney+ and my dad gets Hulu for free. We live under the same household, so we swap accounts. Is this going to make him subscribe to Disney and me to Hulu with the bundle now? I don't use Hulu that much to begin with, but I occasionally use it when I've run out of things to watch.
I will say that I have always hated Hulu with a passion. It's the only service that even on their most expensive tier will still show full on 30 second to 2 minute ads. Absolutely ridiculous.

Edit: That begs another question on how the ads will be handled in the new app since Disney+ currently serves none (as it should be). Will it be segmented were everything Hulu still has ads or will Hulu stop serving ads in the new app?
 
I've thankfully dodged the price increases until this weekend when I finally pay more for Disney+

We both enjoy it daily, so it's worth it.

Now, D+ bundled with Hulu? Hopefully, the combined app won't be $19.99 a month. We'll see.
 
techfreak23 said:
Well that's annoying. I pay for Disney+ and my dad gets Hulu for free. We live under the same household, so we swap accounts. Is this going to make him subscribe to Disney and me to Hulu with the bundle now? I don't use Hulu that much to begin with, but I occasionally use it when I've run out of things to watch.
I will say that I have always hated Hulu with a passion. It's the only service that even on their most expensive tier will still show full on 30 second to 2 minute ads. Absolutely ridiculous.

Edit: That begs another question on how the ads will be handled in the new app since Disney+ currently serves none (as it should be). Will it be segmented were everything Hulu still has ads or will Hulu stop serving ads in the new app?
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Both Disney+ and Hulu currently have ad-supported plans as well as (mostly) ad-free plans. Disney+ with ads is $7.99/month and Disney+ ad-free is $13.99/month. Hulu with ads is $7.99/month and Hulu (mostly) ad-free is $17.99/month.

You can also subscribe to both together. Disney+/Hulu with ads is $9.99/month and Disney+/Hulu ad-free is $19.99/month. I imagine both options will continue to be offered in the upcoming combined product/app.
 
I remember back when you paid for something, there were no ads. Having ads meant the content was free. The revenue was generated by the ads. Now you pay for content and they still jam in ads! WTF???? If your running ads on your service, why am I paying? Thats called regular tv.
 
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mwd25 said:
I remember back when you paid for something, there were no ads. Having ads meant the content was free. The revenue was generated by the ads. Now you pay for content and they still jam in ads! WTF???? If your running ads on your service, why am I paying? Thats called regular tv.
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A pay/ad hybrid model had been the norm for "content delivery" for ages whether it be television, newspapers or magazines. The good thing about many premium streaming services today is that they offer a choice of going ad-free (for more) or ad-supported (for less). You didn't have that option back in the day with premium channels like HBO.
 
HobeSoundDarryl said:
That’s a good one. They’ll do whatever they need to do to recoup the $8B ASAP, but then leave the recoup pricing in place afterwards to fatten the margin, happily ever after. Like the whole new toll road game, it’s a well proven way to fatten a revenue stream forever.

And remember when we wanted ala carte to put it to big cable? As these streamers consolidate into ever bigger entities, big cable is reforming… EXCEPT former big cable who is also big broadband have made up for cord cutting losses to streamers in broadband price hikes & caps.

Rhetorical: who can project the end game? Hint: 💰💰💰
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Ultimately, the endgame for many of us will simply be to cancel ALL of these services, and simply buy piecemeal series/bluray/streaming licenses. I have already done this with one series where I had absolutely no desire to subscribe to the service (Peacock), but I really wanted to watch the show! Now, I don’t ‘own’ it, but I can rewatch for the foreseeable future. Whereas, who knows, the service may remove the content at some point to license it to another service (as HBO did with quite a few programs).
I will read more books, listen to more music, and not pay for out-of-control streaming options. We’re not at that point yet, but I only subscribe to 4 or 5 of them at this point. And I’m probably dropping at least one in the next few months.
There is a point for most where a choice simply looks unreasonable for the price offered.
 
You can't even order the $9.99/ $19.99 Hulu and Disney Plus bundle on Hulu's own website. They only sell a trio option that includes ESPN and is $5 more a month.

You have to get the subscription through the Disney Plus app to get the bundle duo pricing.
 
GimmeDatApple said:
You can't even order the $9.99/ $19.99 Hulu and Disney Plus bundle on Hulu's own website. They only sell a trio option that includes ESPN and is $5 more a month.

You have to get the subscription through the Disney Plus app to get the bundle duo pricing.
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You can get the $9.99 Disney+/Hulu bundle on the Hulu website by going to the "Partner Add-ons" section and adding Disney+ with ads for $2/month extra.
 
Mr_Ed said:
We had Hulu Live TV (the wife likes the old fashioned TV channel lineup) and at some point Hulu raised the price and threw in Disney+. Hulu Live buffered constantly, even in a hardwired console. And then they started piping in a ridiculous amount of HIV drug ads in the early evening. Don’t know what the hell was up with whatever algorithms pick ads for individual subscribers, but the whole thing was more than a little odd. I‘m not talking about an occasional ad, I mean showing one or more during every single commercial break across multiple live channels.

As for Disney+, we watched a few Star Wars related things and that’s about it. Our 11 year old was never into any of the Marvel crap and on the very rare occasions that he chose to use Disney+, he went for the NatGeo content.

I canceled the whole thing and haven’t missed it. Currently using YouTube TV for live TV. The UI is atrocious, but we don’t have any technical or content issues.
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You should try the free Pluto TV app. I love their line up. And may be if you are really in mood of having a vast variety of content on every topic out there including movies and shows and want to shell out money give Paramount plus a try. IMO, that is good streaming service.
 
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