Disney’s Iger: investment in Hulu a boon for content owners

Disney chief Bob Iger has said Hulu has real strategic and financial value for the company and offers a considerable opportunity for content owners.

Hulu’s owners, Disney, Fox and Comcast recently explored sale options before deciding to retain the business, the second time that situation had played out.

The Disney boss said yesterday that the owners of the US streaming service ultimately decided there was value in the business. “We became more and more convinced that there was real strategic value to Hulu and there was value from a financial perspective meaning we could grow it at a rate that would be overall positive for the shareholders of our company,” he said.

Hulu’s owners will plough in US$750 million of new capital that Iger said would be used to strengthen the technology platform, the team and the content line-up.

The decision to retain and invest in Hulu bodes well for producers and distributors, according to Iger. “We think that there is considerable opportunity here and that opportunity will bode well for both Hulu itself but also for content owners who will have a robust platform to sell the content to and for the creative side who will have another entity to sell programming to, or to create for,” he said.

Iger was speaking to analysts in the wake of Disney’s third-quarter results. The company recorded revenues of US$11.6 billion compared with US$11.1 billion in the same period a year earlier and profit of US$1.85 billion against US$1.83 billion across the same period.