Disney and Comcast have closed a deal that will lead to Disney completely owning Hulu. Disney will pay Comcast an additional $438.7 million to complete the acquisition of the streaming service. The deal comes after two years of negotiations between the two companies.
In 2023, Disney agreed to pay Comcast $8.61 billion. This represented one-third of the $27.5 billion guaranteed floor value for Hulu that was agreed to during negotiations in 2019. Last year, both parties entered arbitration to determine what the final price tag would be. This has led to the final number being calculated. The contractual appraisal process was completed on June 9. 2025, and determined that $438.7 million is payable by Disney to Comcoast to purchase the remaining stake in Hulu. This comes from an SEC filing on Monday by Disney. This acquisition of the remaining interest in Hulu will close on or before July 24, 2025, the filing says.
In total, Disney will pay approximately $9 billion for Hulu. This indicates that the final value that was appraised for the streaming service is around $27 billion. If Comcast had gotten its way, it would have received an additional $5 billion from Disney, per the price determined by a bank the company hired to appraise the streaming service.
“We are pleased this is finally resolved. We have had a productive partnership with NBCUniversal, and we wish them the best of luck,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a statement. “Completing the Hulu acquisition paves the way for a deeper and more seamless integration of Hulu’s general entertainment content with Disney+ and, soon, with ESPN’s direct-to-consumer product, providing an unrivaled value proposition for consumers.”
A Comcast spokesperson said in a statement, “Hulu was a great start for us in streaming that generated nearly $10 billion in proceeds for Comcast and created an important audience for NBCUniversal’s world-class content. We wish Disney well with Hulu and appreciate the cooperative way our teams managed the partnership.”
The arbitrated price came from after Disney and Comcast couldn’t come within 10% of their valuations of Hulu. The banks that were hired for valuations then picked a third firm to make the final estimate of valuation, which would be the average of the two figures that are closest to each other. The initial values were quite different from each other. Disney’s was quite low, and Comcast’s was significantly higher. The final price tag came by taking into account the third firm’s valuation.
What do you think about this deal closing for Hulu? Is it good that Hulu will now be owned entirely by Disney? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below!
