Disney Open to Selling ABC, FX and More Networks, But Not ESPN or Hulu

By Liam Crowley

Disney's sandbox of intellectual property has never been more crowded. The house of mouse was a top dog within the entertainment industry based on its original content alone for years, but its acquisition of brands like Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm and ESPN has transformed the company into a dominant juggernaut. Disney doubled down on its IP acquisition in early 2019 when it acquired 20th Century Fox and all of its subsequent assets. Disney's growth meant a colossal increase in spending, one which began to yield unfavorable results at the start of 2023. As a result, recently returned Disney CEO Bob Iger announced plans to cut spending by roughly $5.5 billion.

Those cost-cutting measures have come in the form of slashing production budgets and company-wide layoffs. As of right now, Disney's model for revamping its revenue has come solely in axing spending rather than selling what it already owns. That said, it does not mean the company is opposed to shopping some of its properties.

Speaking to CNBC, Iger noted that ABC, FX, National Geographic and Freeform "may not be core" to Disney. Iger then suggested that he would consider selling those aforementioned brands, but is hard set on retaining at least some control of both ESPN and Hulu.

"We're going to be open minded there too, not necessarily about spinning ESPN off, but about looking for strategic partners that can either help us with distribution or content," Iger said. "But we want to stay in the sports business. Sports is very, very attractive media and we have a unique position and we feel that we should stay in it."

Disney owns 80 percent of ESPN while the remaining 20 percent is controlled by Hearst Communications. As for Hulu, Disney is the majority owner while Comcast's NBCUniversal still has a minority stake in that streaming service.

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"Over time when I came back, I was open minded about Hulu because there is this agreement with Comcast that actually calls for a transaction, their stake to us, sometime in 2024 and I didn't want that to be an automatic. I wanted to look at that objectively," Iger explained. "I spent a lot of time looking at that as part of the future of our streaming business and ultimately concluded that we would be better off having Hulu than not having Hulu." 

Disney plans to merge Disney+ and Hulu into one streaming service by the end of the year.

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