CEO Bob Iger explains Disney's three-pronged approach to taking on Netflix
- Disney will sell three different types of streaming services, according to CEO Bob Iger: A family-friendly movie and TV subscription, a sports streaming platform and a more adult-focused Hulu.
- With the controlling share of Hulu, Disney hopes to "direct" the company and invest in more content, Iger said.
Disney wants to win the streaming wars by having three distinct products: A family-friendly movie and TV service, a sports streaming platform and an adult-focused Hulu.
"We think it's quite a compelling opportunity for the company, and we think it's really compelling from a consumer perspective," Disney CEO Bob Iger told CNBC's David Faber on "Squawk on the Street."
Disney will purchase many parts of Twenty-First Century Fox for $52.4 billion in stock in a deal announced Thursday. Part of the deal includes Fox's movie studios, networks Nat Geo and FX, Asian pay-TV operator Star TV, and stakes in Sky, Endemol Shine Group and Hulu, as well as several regional sports networks. It will also give it more content to launch its direct-to-consumer services, as it prepares to remove its content from Netflix by 2019.
Disney's streaming plans involve launching an over-the-top subscription plan for Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm content in 2019. It will start a sports-focused ESPN streaming service next year, and hopes to make Hulu it's more "adult-oriented product."
The Disney-Fox deal will give Disney a 60 percent stake of Hulu. The company things its an "interesting" opportunity to grow the platform alongside the other minority owners which include Comcast and Time Warner, Iger said.
"With that we'll have the ability to direct Hulu in ways that we haven't been able to, as essentially equal partners," Iger said. "But we'll also be able to infuse Hulu with even more content. We will actually invest in content from both entities for Hulu."
Disclosure: CNBC parent company NBCUniversal is owned by Comcast.