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Here we are, eagerly waiting for Doctor Who’s new season to make Disney Plus its new home, only to come across the alarming discussion about Bob Iger ending the streamer’s existence for good. Has being Marvel’s permanent home finally taken its toll?
It all started with Disney announcing that it will be soon merging Disney Plus with Hulu to roll out the “one app experience” Bob Iger talked about back in May 2023. This is expected to hit the floor next month, with both streamers and their content getting unified under one streaming service.
So, is Disney Plus really going away? Or is Hulu marked for slaughter?
Marvel’s continued streaming miscalculations (except Loki and maybe Moon Knight) and its eyesores like Thor: Love and Thunder being a permanent fixture on Disney Plus have not been a good look for the streamer. And even though it lost a lot less in 2023’s Q4 than the $1.4 billion in 2022’s last quarter, the losses still crossed $300 million. But despite the fluctuation, the Mouse has no plans to shut down the streamer if the current official proceedings are taken into account.
The planned merged experience is yet to worm its way into reality as Disney is yet to finalize its deal with Comcast to buy out its one-third stake in Hulu — it is offering over $8 billion to seal the same and become the only owner of the streamer’s content.
The combined app will be first launched in a beta capacity in the United States in December 2023, followed by a proper, official launch next year in spring. In preparation for the same, Disney has already debuted the new dual bundle of Disney Plus and Hulu (that needs the download of two separate apps), whose ad-supported version costs $9.99/month while the one not testing your patience with advertisements comes at $19.99/ month.
So, the ones purchasing the above-mentioned bundle will be getting the offer to subscribe to the unified app first, which will just be an updated version of the existing Disney Plus app — no new app will be replacing it. For now, the “one-app experience” will only house the two streaming services in one place, allowing you access to both at the same time. Though some titles (like Marvel’s Echo) will be overlapping between the two, the streamers will have separate libraries.
For now, there are no plans in place to erase either streaming service from existence and the new version will only exist to allow viewers to toggle between the two with ease and of course, to let Disney expand its advertising revenue.