• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, March 29, 2024

In case you missed it, Walt Disney is now making it easier for traditional TV viewers to access big libraries of TV series and movie content -- with Hulu programming -- on just one streaming app: Disney+.

Now viewers can access Hulu inside the Disney+ app itself on its opening navigation page. This means Hulu will have its own "tile" -- alongside "Pixar," "Marvel," "Star Wars," "National Geographic" and "Disney" brands.

Users can still get Hulu content separately via its own separate streaming service.

This should instantly give a boost to Disney+ -- especially compared to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and others that have large libraries of content.

Consumers want lots of stuff, even if they might never consume it; the perception that they have lots of TV shows and movies that they would watch sometimes. Hulu gives them that, giving consumers the ease to click less. (Wow. That remote push button activity is exhausting! Let me take a knee.)

Hulu has been around since 2007 in different forms --  essentially the granddaddy of modern CTV/digital premium streaming. Problem is that some of its navigation tools are still a bit old-school, according to critics. Being on Disney+ improves on that.

>All this would seem to be only the tip of the new streaming TV bundle iceberg. While consumers want easier access they also want better overall industry-wide program discovery on all platforms. They would perhaps use streaming platforms even more. 

>That’s why you have heard rumors of big legacy TV-network centric media companies like Warner Bros. Discovery in  partnership talks or of a possible merger with Paramount Global.

Give Walt Disney some credit here.  For its part, right at the outset, company executives were mulling the future -- about a new bundle of programming that would replace your cable TV package of programming or on say the DirecTV and Dish Network.

Almost five years ago, in 2029, it started the "Disney Bundle" -- Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ -- right at the outset when it launched Disney+. Its advertising highlighted this -- especially the word "bundle."

Could more stuff be added as a tile on the Disney+ front page? No doubt.

But it probably will be just around scripted/unscripted entertainment content -- not sports. This, in reference to a sports streaming ‘hub’ deal with Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery to arrive later this year or next.

Even Disney has limitations around its mothership “Disney” brand name.