In a deal which will give it complete control of Hulu, Disney announced it will purchase a 33% stake in the streaming service from Comcast for roughly $8.6 billion. Since 2019, Disney has run Hulu, after Comcast ceded its control to Disney, and began acting as a silent partner.

Disney did not comment, beyond saying that acquiring Hulu with “further Disney’s streaming objectives.”

Hulu debuted in 2007, and was quickly backed by various entertainment conglomerates looking to form a special platform for their TV shows which would drain demand from the internet’s pirating culture. In 2009 Disney joined the platform, looking to offer content from ABC, ESPN, and the Disney Channel. In 2019, Disney took over majority control of the business when it acquired 21st Century Fox.

For years, Disney has acted as if Hulu were one of its own services, such as when it launched its own streaming service, Disney+ in 2019, and offered a streaming bundle which included Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+

More recently, as pressure has built on streaming services to compete as the market has grown without boundaries and customers have been sharing passwords, Disney has taken it upon itself to launch a crackdown on non-paying users and increased prices for ad-free versions of Disney+ and Hulu by 20-27%. In August, CEO Bob Iger said the price changes were designed to encourage customers to move to cheaper ad-supported version of the channels.

At the time, Iger said the market for advertising on streaming services was “picking up,” and was more robust than the market for ads on traditional TV. He added, “We’re obviously trying with our pricing strategy to migrate more subs to the advertising supported tier.”