Comcast chief executive Brian Roberts has signalled the media group will be looking for the full market value for the company’s one-third stake in Hulu.
Mr Roberts was responding to comments made by Walt Disney chief executive Bob Chapek in a Financial Times interview on Monday during which Mr Chapek said he would like the process around the sale of the streaming service to be sped up.
A deal made on 2019 places a minimum value on Hulu of $27.5 billion that would enable Disney to purchase the remainder of the company. But Chapek, noting that the market was no longer as enthusiastic about streaming as it once was, suggested he might not be willing to pay his partner so much.
Then at the Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia + Technology Conference 2022 in San Francisco on Wednesday, Roberts began to talk up Hulu, describing it as a “phenomenal business” and going so far as to suggest he would be interested in buying Disney’s two-third share, were it to be placed on the market
“Hulu’s a phenomenal business. Its scale is fantastic. It has wonderful content … If it was up for sale, Comcast would be interested, and others would I think as well.”
However, that’s far from the Disney position. Earlier at the same conference Chapek repeated its interest in taking 100% of Hulu and ahead of the 2024 trigger point.
Hulu currently has 46.2 million subscribers in the United States.
