Media Monday

Disney+ to Fully Absorb Hulu App

By: Mara Milgrom - Media and Development Manager

Disney announced they will be sunsetting the stand-alone Hulu app and a new unified Disney+ and Hulu streaming app will be available in 2026.  However, according to a Disney rep, customers will still be able to buy a stand-alone Hulu subscription or a stand-alone Disney+ plan.  Meanwhile, Hulu’s live TV business will be combined Fubo, under a proposed joint venture majority-owned by Disney. The Hulu + Live TV and Fubo brands will remain separately sold and marketed.  Beyond the phasing out of the Hulu app, the company is also changing how it reports subscriber numbers and average revenue per unit for its streaming services, including Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+. 

It’s too early to know what this will mean for advertisers but according to Disney, they  already sell the advertising together, but this will give the sales organization a chance to package plans far more effectively than they have before.  

Read more here: https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-hulu-fully-integrated-new-app-2026-2025-8

Meta Acquires AI Audio Startup WaveForms

By: Raphael Anastas - Senior Media Planner

Meta’s latest acquisition to strengthen its new AI unit, Superintelligence Labs, comes just one month after it bought PlayAI. WaveForms’ mission was to solve the “Speech Turing Test,” which tries to measure if a listener can distinguish between human and AI-generated speech. They were also developing “Emotional General Intelligence” technology which focuses on understanding individual self-awareness and management. 

The company was founded by Alexis Conneau, who previously worked on audio research at both Meta and OpenAI, and Coralie Lemaitre, who worked in advertising strategy at Google. Both will now be joining the team at Superintelligence Labs. Meta’s aggressive approach to become the leader in AI is spearheaded by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who believes that people will soon talk to AI regularly throughout the day, if they aren’t already, therefore buying WaveForms AI could help make Meta one of the go-to platforms for AI voice recognition and speech-to-text tools.