Disney assumes full operational control of Hulu

Cafe Society
1

From here.

So Hulu was not long ago a joint venture between Fox/Disney/NBC/Comcast/AT&T. Now it’s just Disney/NBC. And NBC is going to sell their shares to Disney in a few years, so that Disney controls 100%. Disney is also launching their Disney+ streaming service later this year, so I guess Disney needs two entire streaming services for themselves.

I’m not sure I can predict any specific doom and gloom, but it can’t be good when all of our fucking media is owned by like 3 companies, can it? I’ve actually grown rather fond of Hulu. Their movie selection sucks, but I find their TV show selection quite good, and unlike other services you can stay up to date rather than waiting for months after the series is over to have access to them.

Since Disney bought Fox, it’s unlikely that they will lose that content immediately, but given that disney now owns two different streaming services, I suspect they’re going to split some of Hulu’s content between Hulu and Disney+ so that you have to subscribe to both to get the stuff you previously got just from Hulu. NBC is interested in launching their own streaming service, so it’s likely that they yank their content from Hulu as soon as they’re legally able to. So you’re probably looking at at least 3 subscriptions now to do what Hulu alone once did.

Side rant: People still seem to hold an irrational dislike of Hulu because they originally launched with only a $6 mo option with limited commercials. Since then, they’ve released a $12 plan with no commercials. But people still seem to be insane, because all I hear on reddit about any thread relating to hulu is “WTF I HAVE TO PAY AND STILL GET COMMERCIALS? I’M GOING BACK TO NETFLIX. THIS IS RETARDED” Or even websites comparing the various services for some reason compare the $6 hulu plan to the $13 netflix plan and then say “HULU HAS COMMERCIALS WTF, GET NETFLIX”, completely ignoring the fact that it’s Hulu’s $12 plan that competes with Netflix’s $13 plan, and neither has commercials. Hulu gives you the choice of cheaper sub + commercials, or none, for cheaper than netflix, and somehow people view this as a downside compared to paying netflix a buck more a month for the same thing. Sorry for the rant, just something I’ve seen 200 times and it drives me nuts.

In any case, I don’t like Disney as a company. They’ve been changing our copyright and intellectually property rights for the worse (for society) for a century now. The fact that they’re freely buying up mega media companies with no anti-trust concerns is just a large scale sign of corruption and regulatory capture. They own a significant fraction of all TV and movie production companies, distribution companies, and distribution channels. It’s hard to imagine this won’t be worse for the consumer.

It’s funny - and sad - the media conglomerates are merging and gobbling each other up, but at the same time fragmenting and increasing the number of distribution channels so that the consumer is getting fucked from both directions at once.

2

I am so, so ready for antitrust laws to blow up Disney.

3

they were forced to sell off the local Fox sports channels they got from buying most of Fox. But I would not expect much more regulation of Disney unless the dems win the White House.

4

There is a lot to dislike. However, this –

Is not true.

5

Let 'em take over Roku, as well. Maybe my damn stick will stop buffering every five minutes and resetting at least once a day!

6

You should think about getting an amazon firestick 4k then. It’s $35 ($15 off) at the moment and works really well. It’s also worth getting over the regular fire stick even if you don’t need 4k - the remote has power/volume controls and partial universal remote capability (previous ones did not) and the whole thing is very snappy, faster than most or maybe all of those devices.

I assume you can use it even without amazon prime, but I don’t know. All the streaming services have an app, and integrates well (the fire stick can launch apps or tell you which app has a certain show, etc).

7

What is true is that copy rights now last for more than 100 years, and Disney was a major driver behind that expansion.

8

I actually kinda like Disney, and I’m getting Disney+ when it launches.

(I’ll go back into my corner now.)

9

Do you have anything other than rumour, gossip, innuendo, etc., to support that claim?

And how was Disney a “major driver”? Where is the evidence of who the “drivers” were and what’s the standard for defining a major one as opposed to a minor one?

Assuming that you can show that Disney supported changes in copyright law, how was its role different than any other supporters, such that Disney should be singled out as being responsible for it?

What’s the reason for singling Disney out for dislike as compared to, say, CBS or Comcast or News Corp. or Viacom or Time Warner or Sony, other than you heard some sarcastic remark about the term of protection for Mickey Mouse?

10

I like small Disney: Disneyworld, Disneyland, the Disney Channel, and Disney movies that turn fairy tales into pap. That shit’s fine.

But Disney as Disney, and also Pixar, and also Star Wars, and also Marvel, and also Hulu, and also like five billion other things? Not my bag.

11

Why does my mind want to finish “assumes full operational control of…” with “…this battle station”?

12

Nope. It was Adolph Hitler.

The expansion started in Europe, where Disney doesn’t have as much influence. While they certainly were happy for it, the main impetus was to keep Mein Kamph from being in the public domain.

13

Literally Hitler.

14

My only hope is Hulu will suddenly be available here. It’s a pain that Hulu’s site seems to know if I’m using a proxy to access the service, thus blocking it.

15

I got rid of Netflix and switched to Hulu at the worst possible time when Netflix finally started getting great content and good original shows and movies. Maybe this will be a good thing and Hulu will get a bunch of new content.

16

Well it’s not like you signed a contract, you could just flip them back, or have both.

I don’t see how we’d have new content, though. Disney already owned part of Hulu, and so they were already putting some of their content on there. Having fewer owners seems like it’ll lead to the removal of content rather than additional content. I guess Disney may decide to use their big bucks to invest in more content, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

17

Disney 100% was instrumental in expanding US copyright law by helping pass the Sonny Bono Copyright act.

Hulu is the better streaming service if you like TV. Netflix is mainly nothing but Friends, the Office and their Original programming now. If I had to drop one, I would drop Netflix easily.

It looks like things aren’t changing until 2022 the earliest so at least there’s that.

It was clear years ago when Netflix exploded every studio would want to keep their content in house and we would be in this position where there will be a dozen streaming services. The only hope is a few fail so that content gets consolidated again.

18

What does “100 percent instrumental” mean, exactly? And what’s the evidence for it?

And if Disney was “100 percent instrumental” because it was in favor, doesn’t that mean everyone who was in favor was also “100 percent instrumental”? If not, why not? If so, what’s the significance of Disney being one of many “100 percent instrumental” entities and persons?

In other words, if Disney had a uniquely significant role in enactment of the law, prove it.

If not, why is Disney singled out for blame when there are many many persons and entities who benefited and supported enactment?

19

If things fragment, are we likely to see streaming prices drop? Fragmentation would mean you’d use each service less, so you should be paying less for it. And the competition among services should push down on prices, right?

20

Democrats are never going to go after Hollywood, they’re friends.