 "After Tumblr, Yahoo! tries to court Hulu")
There is another player in the Hulu bidding war. Yahoo – recently in the news earlier for its plans to buy Tumblr for $1.1 billion – seems to have made an offer for the video website as well. According to sources, the web giant has submitted a bid for the video site this morning. Yahoo adds its name to the list that now includes companies like Directv, Time Warner Cable, William Morris Endeavor along with PE backer silverlake, KKR, Guggenheim Digital and the Chernin Group.
As earlier reported, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and COO Henrique De Castro have met with Hulu’s team recently for an informal meeting. Yahoo was also previously in the news for trying to buy a large stake in French video site DailyMotion, which later fell through. There has been no official statement from Yahoo about this recent development.
The Hulu bidding war heats up, with Yahoo entering the foray. (image credit:digitaltrends)
The question about money now comes in. With a number of bidders lining up, it now depends on how much the Hulu owners, News Corp, Disney and Comcast, are willing to settle on. The most valuable programming for the site comes from these three companies, primarily through shows that they have already aired on their broadcast networks. Disney and News Corp. have in the past been reported about their differences on how to best manage the site.
The video website has tried to go on sale before. In 2011, Hulu’s owners put the company up for sale, with expected bids ringing to the tune of least $2 billion; in exchange, they would offer content licenses that would run for two to three years. But they ended up pulling the site off the sale block citing unforeseeable reasons.
It has been reported by AllthingsD that former News Corp. COO Peter Chernin submitted a starting bid to the tune of $500 million last month, over which he was willing to pay more for extended licenses. Bids by KKR and William Morris Endeavor/Silverlake were later reported by Bloomberg. While Hulu had asked its prospective bidders to make an offer by Wednesday, the deadline does not seem to be set in stone. This beggars the thought that the company may be expecting more bids to come in as time moves on.
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