https://variety.com/2025/digital/new…ng-1236480450/

Essentially Disney is taking a step beyond just making Hulu content viewable in the Disney+ experience for users with Hulu subscriptions: starting next year Disney+ will be the only app where you can watch your Hulu subscription. At first glance it seems to me like a very drastic branding choice to ditch the dedicated Hulu app, but coworkers of mine who have lots of background in the streaming industry have made a couple of points:

  1. Both Hulu and Disney+ run on an internal technology infrastructure called BAMTech (which started as a spin-off from MLB’s streaming service).
  2. There are significant costs (engineering, customer service, etc.) to duplicating the same service across two different apps.
  3. Disney has struggled dispelling the idea that Disney+ is a “for kids” app.

The stickiest part of the article for me, though, is:

According to a Disney rep, customers will still be able to buy a stand-alone Hulu subscription (as well as a stand-alone Disney+ plan).

Does this mean that existing customers’ plans will carry along as usual, or is Disney going to pull a fast one and automatically convert existing Disney+ subscriptions to a more expensive plan covering both catalogs and give customers the option to opt in to a “new” lower tier?

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