Interesting Dialogue.... I would add the following:
Hulu & Netflix pay the content distributors when someone watches a movie, show, cartoon etc. They don't get anything if people don't watch them. With Hulu advertised, the distributers also get advertising share from those shows viewed with any ads. So removing items from a service greatly reduces your income from the asset.
Hulu currently pays AT&T, Fox/Disney, Comcast, for their shows, but then at the end of the quarter. If Hulu didn't have enough money to pay all the bills, these partners would have to return a portion or more of what they got in cash to cover the shortage. Maybe they get some equity to offset the investment, but it is a shell game, "I give you some money, I owe a bunch of bills, you give me back some of them money" ..... Now that AT&T is out, Warner will get their payments but won't have to true up at the end of the quarter, Fox/Disney and Comcast will have to pay their portion. I think this is going to mount (the shortage) as the cost of exclusive content and international expansion starts to show up at the end of each quarter.
It will be instructive to see how the AT&T shares are divided between Disney and Comcast. Does Disney allow Hulu to borrow money to pay for these shares? Or does Comcast / Disney have to come up with this cash? What signals / game theory can be derived from their moves? If Disney ends up with all of the AT&T shares, you get a strong signal from Comcast that they want to shrink the relationship.
Comcast also has to start to think about investing in a response to 5G. The FEC announced an auction coming this December with $20 billion in incentives for the telco's. Does Comcast buy some of the spectrum? Or does Comcast spend a bunch of money upgrading / defending their wired network? Or do they do some of both. Comcast has said it will reduce its debt (post purchase of Sky) by close to $5 Billion a year. Not sure how they can participate in the international expansion of Hulu, spend money on Sky integration, roll out their own competing over the top streaming service, respond to the 5G roll out, and reduce their debt load by $5 billion a year, and do all of that (while maintaining their current dividend) out of current cash flows.
Regardless, there is a good argument Comcast will want to sell their shares of Hulu to Disney, or at least not match Disney 3$ for every 7$ Disney spends on Expanding Hulu.... If they don't, Disney's equity in Hulu will grow. Comcast will also likely not be in a big hurry to take their content off of Hulu and dig them selves a revenue hole. Just thinking..... my opinion.