The one thing that appears certain is that the saga of who will buy Hulu, dating back over two years, will end soon as the current owners have stated they want to complete the process in the next two weeks. Disney, 21st Century Fox and Comcast own roughly a third each and the first two have wanted out because they cannot agree over strategy. Comcast meanwhile has been frustrated by the impasse given the constraints imposed over its involvement by the terms of its original stake acquisition, which means it effectively has no influence over the outcome. The first two have been seeking a buyer for some time, although have found it hard to agree over that as well and have been continually reevaluating fall back positions, including taking on other investors.
The lack of coordination was manifest in the outcome of a bid made by Guggenheim Partners, a privately held global financial services firm, which is believed to have offered $1 billion plus a package of programming rights that it owned. But Hulu’s owners have stated that they have discounted that bid after initially considering it. This leaves two main bidders in the running, DirecTV plus a partnership between AT&T and media executive Peter Chernin, which are both seeking full control. Time Warner Cable is also still there but only for a minority stake to become the fourth investor. While this might suit Comcast it looks unlikely to be the outcome Disney or Fox are seeking, as they imply when they expect the matter to be resolved in two weeks. Taking on a fourth investor would hardly be a resolution and would appear to introduce a further complexity. However it would make sense for Time Warner, since it would gain access to the video site’s growing subscriber base and put it in a position to negotiate new deals with existing Hulu content providers, which could in turn be lured to Time Warner’s own services. Alternatively it could offer Hulu free to its existing subscribers. It would be interesting in that Time Warner would be a co-owner with arch rival MSO Comcast but with a more active role since it would not accept the same back seat position. Although Comcast and Time warner Cable are rarely considered rivals in truth.
An acquisition by Guggenheim would have been the best outcome for Hulu because it would have provided a source of funding and backing by an entity interested solely in its future expansion and prosperity, willing presumably to assist it in its battle with other OTT providers such as Netflix. DirecTV and AT&T on the other hand are both video distributors seeking to absorb Hulu into their TV Everywhere strategies and aiming to recruit its subscribers into their larger services.
Hulu would almost certainly become a pay-only site, or at least require a pay TV subscription for access. It would surely suffer as a result, and it would do no favors for the networks it currently distributes either, especially in the case of less popular shows. To date consumers have often come on to Hulu precisely because it does have a free version.
But one way or another it looks like Hulu will at last pass to a new owner and just one of them.