“Hulu’s board has approached potential buyers to gauge their interest in buying the online video service, three sources close to the company told Reuters, as owners News Corp. and Walt Disney weigh what to do with their interests in the five-year-old company,” Ronald Grover and Jennifer Saba report for Reuters.
“The board sounded out several possible buyers as part of an internal strategic review begun recently, but it has not received a formal offer, one of the sources said on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private,” Grover and Saba report. “It was unclear how many parties Hulu had contacted.”
Grover and Saba report, “News Corp and Disney are also considering other options, including buying each other out, one of the sources said on Monday on condition of anonymity. Finding a buyer will be difficult because most of Hulu’s contracts with networks for programs are short term, according to Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles who follows Hulu competitors Netflix and Coinstar. ‘Nobody will buy them unless they can fix content costs in a long-term agreement,’ said Pachter.”
Read more in the full article here.
Content owners better wake up before they are bypassed completely by Apple.
No doubt.
I subscribe to Hulu, and to Netflix, and the Amazon prime. I cut the cord and no longer have cable. But I have to say I almost exclusively watch Netflix. I have a hard time watching Hulu because of the commercials. As long as Netflix is commercial free, people will be bothered by paying for a service, and being forced to watch commercials too. Seems like double taxation.
I am the same. I cut the cable cord nearly 17 years ago and like you, I use Netflix because there are no ads. Hulu ads are not targeted but general and are generally not applicable to me and not only put me off of Hulu but put me off of the products and companies who advertise there.
I’m doing the same. Netflix is my main entertainment via Apple TV. I bought a Roku so I could watch Amazon Prime shows. Hulu is my choice for current series, like “Revolution”.
Free HD over the air with the occasional Netflix and sometimes a purchase of content from iTunes and I’m all set. The occasional YouTube video, nothing that AppleTV can’t provide as it is. I’m all good. I was buying DVDs from Amazon and turning them around and reselling them, but that’s a bit more trouble than it’s really worth.
I will gladly pay for as free content, but despise commercials- including the ever more intrusive superimposed lower thirds virtually every network seems determined to paste over content.
Despite having Comcast digital cable and a Tivo, I buy season passes for stuff I follow- like Mad Men to avoid the ads and AMCs superimposed BS.
Even PBS is starting to put more and more of this shit on air and is toying with the idea of sponsor messages (read commercials on a non-commercial public broadcaster) “deeper” into programming.
Hulu is nothing but a website, some contracts and a server farm. There is no value for Apple here.