Hulu could soon be in the hands of Disney, as a high stakes game of asset trading overseas could have a dramatic impact on the streaming service.

After a winning $39 billion bid to acquire British satellite TV company Sky, CNBC reports Comcast is willing to shed some of its assets back home, including its 30% minority stake in Hulu.

Analysts report Comcast has lost interest in the streaming venture because the cable company will face a permanently-reduced say in the venture after Disney completes its acquisition of 21st Century Fox, which controls 30% of Hulu. After the dust settles, Hulu will be 60% owned by Disney, 30% by Comcast and the remaining 10% held by AT&T, as part of its merger with Time Warner (Entertainment).

Originally formed in 2007 as an almost equal partnership between Disney, Comcast, and Fox, Hulu provides a controlled streaming platform for ABC, NBC, and FOX shows. Originally offering free, ad-supported access to recently aired network programs, Hulu has since grown dramatically under a subscription model, deepening its catalog of TV shows and movies and launching original content. In the last year, it launched its own cable-TV replacement service, offering streaming live television. Hulu is estimated to have 20 million paid streaming subscribers and an additional 1 million are signed up for Hulu with Live TV.

If Disney takes control of Hulu, CEO Bob Iger claims it will operate independently of Disney’s own, forthcoming subscription streaming service, set to debut in 2019. Iger said Disney may offer bundled discounts if customers subscribe to both Hulu and Disney’s own streaming service.

A large number of Hulu customers are willing to pay $4 more per month to banish advertisements from the streaming service’s growing catalog of content.

Hulu, a partnership between Fox, Comcast-NBC, Disney, and Time Warner, Inc., has more than 20 million paid subscribers, and around 40 percent pay $11.99 for the ad-free version of the service. Fox CEO James Murdoch told Recode he believed the ad-avoiding crowd had grown to represent 50% of Hulu’s subscriber base, but insiders later corrected Murdoch, claiming more than 60% still pay $7.99 a month for the ad-supported tier.

Hulu says its customers are getting ad loads “less than half that of traditional television” on its $7.99 plan, according to CEO Randy Freer.

More mysterious — how many customers are willing to pay $40 a month for Hulu’s Live TV service. Hulu isn’t saying.

Fierce Cable notes CBS All Access has also had success getting subscribers to pay $9.99 a month for an ad-free experience — $4 more than its standard $5.99 subscription price. CBS claims about one-third of its 2.5 million customers choose ad-free viewing.

CBS has been criticized for loading considerably more advertising content into shows than its rivals, which may have irritated enough customers to upgrade.

Joe Ianniello, chief operating officer at CBS, said the more subscribers are willing to pay for CBS All Access, the more leverage CBS gets forcing cable and satellite providers to pay more for the right to carry CBS affiliated television stations on their lineups.

“When the consumer is making the choice to pay $10 a month, that speaks volumes and that gives us a lot of strength when we go into those negotiations because we know that the consumer has knowingly elected to pay that. They’re not being subsidized by advertising, or subsidized in big bundle cable package; they chose to do that so that gives us a lot of confidence when we head into those revenue negotiations,” Ianniello said during CBS’ most recent earnings call.

YouTube TV customers attracted by unlimited storage DVR service are now discovering their recorded shows have been temporarily replaced with an on-demand version loaded with unskippable advertising.

In late April, YouTube TV dramatically increased the number of shows that cannot be viewed using DVR service. Instead, viewers are pointed to the on-demand version instead, even when a customer records the show using YouTube’s unlimited storage DVR service. Some customers who pay $40 a month for YouTube TV don’t appreciate what they consider a “bait and switch” DVR that raids their library of recorded shows and puts them off-limits in favor of an alternative version littered with ads one cannot skip.

Customers may not have noticed the gradual increase in the number of ads-included, on-demand shows until recently when YouTube TV started restricting the option of watching an ad-skippable DVR recording instead. Now it is the on-demand (VoD) version or nothing in many cases, at least for the first month or so after a show airs.

“I never had trouble watching DVR versions of programs from NBC, USA, FX, FOX, etc. several days — if not weeks — after recording them. Even if there was a VoD version available,” noted Daw Johnson. “As of last week, the service has completely changed. Roughly 16 hours after the program airs live, you completely lose access to recordings on shows from any of those networks. You’re 100% forced to watch the VoD version (with ads).”

How YouTube TV is marketed.

Each network seems to handle advertising differently. CBS is notorious for loading as many as 20 ads per hour, while some shows on ABC don’t include any ads at all. Some ads are 15 seconds long, others — especially pushing prescription drugs, can run much longer.

Some customers feel YouTube TV has misled them about its DVR service, noting it was sold as an unlimited service:

You can record as many programs as you want at the same time, without ever running out of storage space. We’ll even keep each recording for 9 months. Stream from your library anywhere in the U.S.

But in reality, because of YouTube’s own desire to increase advertising revenue and thanks to agreements with certain programmers, DVR service is becoming more restricted on current shows, and a growing number of older titles airing on cable networks are likely to see mandatory ads creep in as well as YouTube starts selling ad time itself.

“Many networks provide recent episodes of shows, movies, and more on demand. If you’ve recorded a program that’s available on demand at the time you’re watching, in some cases the on demand version will be played back instead of your recording. You typically cannot fast-forward through video on demand ads,” the company explained.

This week, YouTube unveiled a brand new effort to integrate the Google video ads platform into the YouTube TV experience, opening up plenty of new advertising opportunities for companies that want to target YouTube TV customers and be assured viewers cannot fast forward past their ads.

Now Google’s advertisers can target video ads at YouTube TV customers.

“Content from some cable networks in the U.S. will be part of Google Preferred lineups so that brands can continue to engage their audience across all platforms,” said Debbie Weinstein, managing director of YouTube/Video Global Solutions. “This means advertisers will be able to get both the most popular YouTube content and traditional TV content in a single campaign – plus, we’ll dynamically insert these ads, giving advertisers the ability to show relevant ads to the right audiences, rather than just showing everyone the same ad as they might on traditional TV.”

That is likely to mean an exponential increase in GEICO ads.

None of this should be a surprise, if subscribers reviewed the terms and conditions of service when they signed up. In March, 2017, we warned would-be customers the service would insert forced advertising into the DVR experience. YouTube TV isn’t likely to be the only streaming service that will start pushing mandatory advertising into DVR recordings. TV executives want to establish a precedent for forced advertising on the cord-cutting streaming marketplace.

“While it isn’t possible to put the DVR genie back in the bottle for traditional cable customers, TV networks are hopeful they can train viewers to expect ads at least in on-demand, current-season shows they stream,” reported the Wall Street Journal in 2017.

YouTube TV is adding seven new basic cable networks owned by Time Warner/Turner Broadcasting to its lineup along with NBA TV and the MLB Network.

The new TW/Turner Network channels — TNT, TBS, CNN, truTV, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim and Turner Classic Movies, along with more sports programming, will also mean a $5 a month rate hike for the streaming service, effective March 13.

Existing YouTube TV customers and those signing up before the rate increase takes effect will be spared the price increase, paying $35 a month for the service instead of the $40 rate charged new customers next month.

YouTube TV has focused much of its attention in the last year on getting local broadcast stations on its lineup, and now has a complete assortment of NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX affiliates in dozens of TV markets. One of the reasons cord-cutters are reluctant to cancel their cable subscription is the loss of local stations, but YouTube TV has managed to overcome that roadblock for many subscribers.

The service has spent much of its annual budget on sports channels, which are usually the most costly basic cable networks. The addition of Time Warner, Inc./Turner Broadcasting cable networks came as a result of subscriber demand. Time Warner, fighting the Department of Justice over its proposed acquisition by AT&T, will likely use the new agreement as additional evidence the company is not withholding popular cable programming from AT&T’s competitors.

YouTube TV offers a 7-day free trial, after which subscribers are charged $35 a month. If interested in the service, now is the time to subscribe before it costs $60 more a year.

Hulu has picked up an additional five million customers since the streaming service last reported subscriber numbers in May 2016 — an increase of 42 percent.

That gives the streaming service more than 17 million paid subscribers, with a potential shared household audience of 54 million.

Hulu’s growth is attributed to a dramatic increase in its catalog of television series, original productions, and movies. When the service launched, it primarily showcased selections of recent episodes from current network shows aired by Hulu’s owners — Walt Disney Co. (ABC), Comcast Corp. (NBC), 21st Century Fox Inc. (FOX), and Time Warner Inc., and a handfuls of seasons of older series no longer airing on network television, many originally running on CBS.

Hulu has gradually shifted away from a free, ad-supported streaming service to a paid subscription model offering subscription options for limited or no commercials. As Hulu’s content library grew and the service offered a more complete library of series, it has also picked up subscribers. Much of its recent growth has come from attracting new subscribers seeking Hulu’s new original shows and a deep catalog of older series from the United States and United Kingdom. Hulu also improved its movie catalog with a larger selection of popular movie titles, some relatively recent.

In 2017, Hulu introduced a cable television replacement service offering live and on-demand programming from a wide selection of cable networks and a significant number of local network affiliates. Today, Hulu offers more than 75,000 episodes of 1,700 different television shows and features — more than double than any of its competitors.

But Hulu still has significant room to grow to reach Netflix, which has more than 109 million customers worldwide, including 52.8 million in the U.S., as of the end of September.