
Disney Assumes Full Control of Hulu in Deal with Comcast - dsr12
https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/disney-full-control-hulu-comcast-deal-1203214338/
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samfisher83
I am surprised Disney didn't just buy out universal. If they did they would
own all 10 of top 10 grossing movies of all time. As it is they own 8 out of
the 10 with the fox purchase.

It feels like Disney is becoming too powerful. I am surprised regulators
didn't look harder at the Fox deal.

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basch
It was an asset deal. Should regulators really be preventing a team of people
from buying up historical intellectual property? Fox put its property on the
market, this wasnt a hostile takover.

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space_fountain
Yes when one group starts to control too much. I feel like that's the primary
purpose of antitrust regulations.

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jngreenlee
Benedict Evens' newsletter this week made a good point in regards to breaking
up tech:

"anti-trust theory, on both the diagnosis side and the remedy side, seems to
be flummoxed when faced by products that are free or as cheap as possible, and
that do not rely on familiar kinds of restrictive practices (the tying of
Standard Oil) for their market power. The US in particular has tended to focus
exclusively on price, where the EU has looked much more at competition, but
neither has a good account of what exactly is wrong with Amazon"

I think this is salient...what is Disney doing (so far) to BLOCK competition?

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michaelbuckbee
In actual film theaters (not VOD) they're forcing theaters to give up a larger
% of the ticket revenue, requiring that films be shown in the larger
auditoriums and enforcing multi-week showtimes.

This article describes the requirements for The Last Jedi, but my
understanding is that this is pretty close to the requirements for any
Marvel/StarWars/Disney film at this point.

[https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-requirements-to-
show-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-requirements-to-show-star-
wars-the-last-jedi-in-theaters-2017-11)

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jandrese
I have no doubt the requirements for Endgame were ridiculous. I waited a week
to see it and of the 9 screens in my local Cineplex, 8 of them were still
showing Endgame. The theater I was in was mostly empty, although to be fair it
was a Sunday matinee.

I can kind of see demanding that kind of coverage for the first week, but for
a second week you're just robbing from competing films and the theaters
themselves.

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mrguyorama
>for a second week you're just robbing from competing films and the theaters
themselves.

Which is absolutely the point

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jonwachob91
Why is Disney going to keep their Disney Plus streaming service separate from
Hulu??? Why is Disney keeping ESPN Plus streaming service separate from Hulu
(with hulu's massive push into live sports this year)???

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oflannabhra
It’s actually a really wise business decision to keep all these separate.

\- Hulu advertising tier: this can be the dumping ground for all the
mainstream network television that Disney and Fox owned, allowing them to
monetize that content after broadcast

\- Hulu premium: compete with Netflix for premium television, can be more
mature, and allows for monetizing viewers willing to pay for ad-free.

\- Disney+: obviously a different brand with content requirements, it can
allow Disney to grow their brand, and monetize the most “die-hard” fans, on
top of other channels.

\- ESPN+: live is very important, and allows premium advertising revenues to
be generated. Sports does not have much crossover with other channels, and has
unique business models.

All of these allow Disney to continue making tons of money from the current
cable bundles, while opening new markets and segments for monetization, all
while defending against threats like Netflix, etc.

I don’t own Disney stock, but their current situation seems very considered,
given the current market and where it is going. I think they have single
handedly disrupted Netflix’s plan to be the new “TV”.

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halfmatthalfcat
Netflix can't be the new "TV" in the traditional sense. The two lanes of
consumption, traditional live linear and VOD (video-on-demand), have different
audiences with different needs. Netflix can compete in the later but Disney is
going for BOTH.

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falcor84
> traditional live linear and VOD (video-on-demand), have different audiences
> with different needs

{{citation needed}}

I found myself enjoying live Tennis on Amazon Prime, and it serves a very
similar purpose to me as watching their vod shows

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mastrsushi
I’m worried that it will be difficult for the majority of people to realize
how domineering Disney is beginning to become due to it’s historic legacy.
It’s easy for someone to immediately point fingers at a company blandly titled
Comcast or Viacom.

It’s hard for someone not at least somewhat industry aware to see evil in the
Mickey Mouse Mass Media Cruise Ship Marvel Starwars Conglomerate.

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halfmatthalfcat
Biggest take away from me is that NBC is raking in $500MM a year on their
catalog, wow.

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georgeecollins
What if Yahoo had gained traction in video streaming as part of their MaVeNS
strategy? It seems like even if they were an also ran as a streaming service
they would have added a lot of value to the company. Unfortunately they did
not execute successfully. But in hindsight I think that was a very good idea.

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jyriand
Seems like Hulu is US only. At least I can’t subscribe to them where I’m
living. Can’t really understand why they don’t like to take my money. I’m sure
I’m not the only one who would like to pay them, so that I could at least
watch Handmaid’s Tale.

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futhey
Worked at a similar company. The answer is licensing. It would require a
complicated, multi-party legal re-negotiation, and I suspect Hulu doesn't see
the upside.

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totaldude87
Now that they have Hulu and Disney + , ESPN + and MoviesAnywhere,will there be
a combined offering in line?

hope they don't kill Hulu's $6 ad supported plans..

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LaserToy
What can I say, Playstation Vue is in deep trouble

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danite
Revert copyright back to the original 28 years and Disney's increasing
domination of the media market becomes less of a concern. Of course this
probably won't happen because the US and other world governments exist to
serve Disney and their shareholders, but it's the easiest way to fix this that
doesn't involve a long and complicated antitrust case that the government
might lose in the courts.

If you want to be even more daring and spend a little bit of public money, you
could have a publicly financed streaming service with most major public domain
works. You could make it available through the Library of Congress.

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rayiner
I don't see the public interest angle here. This is merely entertainment. If
even entertainment is something the government should be butting into because
of unspecified "public interest" considerations, then what is _outside_ the
government's role?

Goodfellas, Dances with Wolves, Edward Scissorhands, Total Recall, Ghost, the
Hunt for Red October, Back to the Future III, Pretty Woman, and the Godfather
Part III were all released in 1990, 29 years ago. These were all created by a
group of individuals, and studios spent millions of dollars paying those
people to make those movies. The government had nothing to do with creating
any of those movies. Why should the government be able to take those movies
and release them for free?

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vhold
By this logic there should no copyright protection in the first place for
entertainment. Why should the government use law enforcement resources to
track down people and take away their freedoms because they copied a movie?

Only because the government is already involved, protecting their interests,
is there even anything to "take" in the first place.

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rayiner
The government shouldn’t use law enforcement resources to enforce copyright.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to file a civil suit for infringement.
That doesn’t cost the government anything other than the general cost of
having courts.

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shmerl
All these media monsters are already too big. They should be split apart, not
allowed to buy more stuff.

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burntoutcase
We used to have an entertainment industry in the United States. Now we just
have Disney and Comcast. But $DEITY forbid we use existing antitrust laws (not
to mention the Commerce Clause in the Constitution) to break up the
megacorporations and clear the field for meaningful competition, because that
would be _socialism_ and we can't have that.

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frostyj
Name a movie that doesn't belong to Disney in 10sec. Go.

