Comcast CEO: We Would Bid To Buy Hulu

Comcast Corp. CEO Brian Roberts said this week that the Philadelphia media conglomerate would make a bid to buy Hulu if the Walt Disney Company puts the streaming service up for sale, reports The Philly Business Journal.

“It’s scale is fantastic. It has wonderful content, and I believe if it was for sale, put up for sale, Comcast would be interested," Roberts said during an appearance at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference in San Francisco. "So would a lot of other tech and media companies, and you would have a robust auction."

Comcast already owns a 33% stake in Hulu through its NBCUniversal division. In 2019, it entered into an agreement with Disney under which either side can trigger the sale of Comcast's ownership stake to Disney beginning in 2024. Under the terms of the agreement, Disney must pay fair market value as determined by independent experts with Comcast guaranteed a minimum total valuation for Hulu of $27.5 billion.

Roberts’ comments on the possibility of Comcast instead buying Hulu outright came just hours after Disney CEO Bob Chapek appeared on the same stage and addressed a potential merger of Hulu and the company's other streaming service, Disney+, whenever it is able to gain full control by acquiring Comcast's stake.

“We would love to get to the end point earlier [than 2024], but that obviously takes some level of propensity for the other party to have reasonable terms for us to get there, and if we could get there, I would be more than happy to try to facilitate that,” Chapek said.

Brian Roberts

Disney currently offers customers a streaming bundle of Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, which it also owns, for $13.99 per month. Chapek acknowledged instances of “consumer friction in terms of having to go from one app into another,” but added that “2024’s not that far away.”

When asked how serious Comcast's potential interest in acquiring Hulu would be, Roberts said that was "up to Disney."

"But if it were for sale, we certainly, and I think others would also want to get into that opportunity," he said. "But I think our position is very enviable in what’s right for our shareholders in the great company that Hulu is.”

Comcast is seeing increased competition from the likes of T-Mobile and Verizon begin to cut into its bread-and-butter broadband internet business. The company failed to add broadband customers in the second quarter, and saw the number of paid subscriptions to its own Peacock streaming service remain relatively flat at 13 million. Hulu, by comparison, has 46 million paid subscribers.