Disney Reportedly Considering Selling TV Networks

Disney might be considering selling off some of their traditional TV networks. A new report from The Wall Street Journal details how the entertainment giant might be looking at moving some of their brands to help with costs. Mainstays like ABC, FX, and Disney Channel are likely staying put. But, cable package mainstays like Freeform and National Geographic are less sure bets. Recently, Disney made the decision to slash staff over at Nat Geo and eliminate the physical magazine that’s been a pop-culture institution for decades. As cable packages get into murkier territory, channels like Freeform find themselves in a strange spot too.

WSJ explains, “So far, the executives’ work has identified ABC, Disney Channel and FX as the channels with the most value to Disney, people involved in the process said, because they all produce content that is popular on Disney’s streaming platforms Disney+ and Hulu. Other assets including cable networks Freeform and the National Geographic channel are less critical to Disney’s future, the review found.”

Disney Not Selling Shows Or Movies To Netflix

As people discuss Disney’s financials, there was speculation that the company could follow in Warner Bros. Discovery’s footsteps by licensing content to Netflix or other streaming competitors. During this week’s investor call, CEO Bob Iger was quick to pour cold water on that notion. In short, he doesn’t see a world where their “core brands” end up on Netflix or any other streamer for quick cash flow.

“We’ve actually been licensing content to Netflix and are going to continue to. We’re actually in discussion with them now about some opportunities, but I wouldn’t expect that we will license our core brands to them,” Iger said. “Those are obviously competitive advantages for us and differentiators. Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars for instance, they are all doing very, very well on our platform and I don’t see why just to basically chase bucks we should do that when they are really really important building blocks to the current and future of our streaming business.”

Disney Makes Bold Move For Total Control of Hulu

Iger also announced that they would be buying out Universal’s share of Hulu. Along with that news came word of a combined Disney+/Hulu streaming service that will debut in the spring of 2024. “Speaking of Hulu, we were pleased to announce last week that we will acquire the remaining stake in Hulu held by Comcast, which will further Disney streaming objective,” Iger told investors. 

“We remain on track to roll out more unified one app experience domestically, making expensive general entertainment content available to bundle subscribers via Disney+…,” Iger continued. “We expect that Hulu and Disney plus will result in increased engagement, greater advertising opportunities, lower churn and reduced customer acquisition costs, thereby increasing our overall margins. We will launch a beta version for bundle subscribers in December, giving parents time to set up profiles and parental controls that work best for their families ahead of the official launch in early spring 2024.”

“In December, we launch a beta version of Hulu and Disney plus combined. We feel really good about that. I saw some basically some demos of that just yesterday. As a matter of fact, we are basically putting it in beta so that we can prepare parents largely to basically implement parental controls, because you’ll be able to access Hulu programming on the same app,” he added. “And then in late March, we’ll launch it basically in full form and think we have opportunities in terms of upsell capabilities. In terms of increasing engagement. We found that where we bundled, we lower churn, and again, these are steps that are all taken to ultimately turn this into a great business.”

Do you think they’ll sell their TV businesses? Let us know down in the comments!