As part of a buyout move that’s been several months in the making, Disney will soon purchase Comcast’s 33% stake in Hulu, becoming the sole owner of the popular streaming service.
The Walt Disney Company, which already owns the other two-thirds of Hulu thanks to its 2019 purchase of 20th Century Fox, made an announcement today that updates the timeline for its acquisition. In the statement, Disney said it expects to pay Comcast Corp.’s NBC Universal approximately $8.61 billion. The purchase amount is to be based on an appraisal of Hulu’s value conducted on September 30, 2023.
The agreement, which was struck in 2019, was based on Hulu’s then-appraised fair value of $27.5 billion. Though the wheels on this deal will be set in motion on December 1, 2023, the ink isn’t expected to dry until sometime in early 2024.
Hulu had 48.3 million subscribers at the end of the most recent quarter, according to Reuters, compared with 24 million paid subscribers for Comcast’s Peacock streaming service and 105.7 million global subscribers for Disney+.
Hulu is considerably larger than many of its direct competitors. Sling TV ended the second quarter of 2023 with just over 2 million subscribers, while Fubo had just 1.1 million. YouTube TV has proven stronger than both of these services, though it hasn’t released numbers since July 2022, when it had just over 5 million subscribers.
The acquisition would give Disney full ownership of one of the most popular cable TV alternative streaming bundles, which include various combinations of Disney+, Hulu, and Disney-owned ESPN+.
Instagram is making its way to yet another screen, and this time, Apple TV is getting a taste of the Reels rabbit hole. The company has launched a dedicated Instagram app for Apple TV, bringing Reels, longer videos, and live shows to the big screen. So, if watching one quick clip on a phone somehow turns into an hour of scrolling, there's now a much larger screen for that.
Instagram brings Reels and more to Apple TV
Audio-Technica, a brand well known for making some of the best studio and professional headphones on the market, has just come out with the ATH-AWX7000, which the company itself claims to be its "finest headphones ever." The new flagship closed-back headphone has debuted at an eye-watering price of $3,799. It combines hand-finished Japanese woodwork with a newly developed 58mm driver.
The earcups are made from Kiso cypress, a prized wood historically used for Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Each housing is finished by hand with traditional Echizen lacquer, which brings out the grain and is expected to darken over time. The frame and sliders are finished in a deep navy kachi-iro shade traditionally associated with samurai.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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