Disney’s Deal to Merge Hulu Live TV and Fubo
Just a week into 2025, the media industry got its first consequential transaction: The Walt Disney Company is buying 70 percent of Fubo, the video service that had sued to block the media giant’s plan to create Venu, a sports streaming joint venture with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery.
The agreement, which was announced Monday, puts an end to that litigation. The deal has raised some big questions. But the arrangement has raised some big questions.
Who benefits in the Disney-Fubo deal?
After years of questions about Disney’s plans for Hulu — the company now owns all of the streaming service — Robert A. Iger, the Disney chief, is effectively offloading what Richard Greenfield, a media analyst at LightShed Partners, called “the least exciting part” of Hulu.
Investors will be watching to see how long Disney takes to begin selling down its stake in the Fubo-Hulu + Live TV venture.
Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney and Warner Bros. will pay $220 million in total to settle litigation with Fubo. Disney will also lend Fubo $145 million.) The agreement gives Mr. Bronfman a new narrative after his failed bid to buy Paramount last year. And it creates a new narrative for him after his aborted bid to buy Paramount last year.
Are Venu’s antitrust problems really over?
Fubo may have settled its fight to stop the streaming venture, but the Justice Department filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case — and there is nothing in the Fubo settlement prohibiting the agency from filing its own lawsuit.
