Of the streaming services with major market share of over 5% as of 4Q2022 in the US, we have been monitoring of course what Disney does with Hulu or not along with ESPN+.
A term had arisen in media circles more a few months ago called a “hard bundle,” which is basically one bundle of streaming apps that you pay for once AND with all the associated brands and apps integrated into one place on your screen so you don’t have to exit between apps to watch something on ESPN+ like now with the “soft bundle.”
As a personal example and fill in for your own apps for yourself, I find it annoying to have to exit from YouTube to watch something on Netflix, and then I have to exit from Netflix to go see what I might watch on Paramount+.
Now these are all different companies so that reality of having to flip between apps that is not as easy as changing channels certainly won’t change any time soon, but when it’s the same company that owns all the apps as does Disney in this case, why is the viewer experience still now with the “soft bundle” as if they are completely different companies!?
So much as Paramount+ (6% share) just did with the Showtime brand to make it all in the same app and a “hard bundle,” either Disney will integrate Disney+ (15% share), Hulu+ (11% share), and ESPN+ into one hard bundle or of course Hulu goes to NBC Universal and Comcast for whatever they will do with it including an integration and rebrand of lowly Peacock.
Then there is HBO Max (14%), which I could easily see going into a larger Warner Brothers Discovery bundle, and sure enough that is projected in the works for this summer.
In other cases, though, media companies are opting to deposit all the shows and movies a company has available into one central place. Warner Bros. Discovery, which operates HBO Max and Discovery+ as separate services that aren’t bundled in any way, is readying to debut a single new service by summer 2023, executives announced earlier this year, although many of the details, including its branding and price, remain under wraps.
Within 7% of the total market share are all the other smaller players, beyond ESPN+ as discussed, that either are going to figure out here in 2023 how to be part of a hard bundle and with possible rebranding, or they are going out of business de facto (small player with a lousy app that is not going to get major market share and just be a corporate slush fund like Comcast’s Peacock) or de juro (Bally Sports+ well on the way now).