Yahoo’s interest in purchasing Hulu may be reigniting. SAI reports that if Hulu’s current owners are willing to guarantee four or five years of exclusive access to content, then Yahoo might be interested in paying up to $2 billion for the streaming content provider. Neither Hulu, its owners, or Yahoo have commented.
Hulu has reportedly been shopping itself around to potential buyers since late June, when the company was approached with a buyout offer. Earlier this month, Disney CEO Bob Igor confirmed that Hulu’s primary owners, Disney, NBCUniversal (now part of Comcast), and News Corp were indeed looking to sell off the TV streaming service, and had retained Morgan Stanley to assist. Yahoo, along with Google, and Microsoft initially were identified as potential prospects. More recently, Amazon, AT&T, and Verizon surfaced as possible buyers.
Hulu is mainly a delivery content vehicle. Much of content itself is owned by Disney and NBCUniversal. It’s widely considered logical for any acquiring company to ask for some sort of time period during which it would have exclusive access to current TV shows or older movies. Yahoo is reportedly looking for four of five years of exclusivity, during which time it could build up its brand identity. Bloomberg has reported, that Hulu’s current owners are willing to offer up to five years of access to the content, but only two of those would be exclusive
