After months of being courted by technology giants and TV signal providers, online video service Hulu is no longer for sale, its media company owners said Thursday.
The Walt Disney Co., News Corp., Comcast Corp. and Providence Equity Partners had been shopping the site since June after receiving an unsolicited takeover offer.
They tested the waters for other interest, and dozens of companies, from Internet giants Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. to satellite TV providers Dish Network Corp. and DirecTV, began circling.
But the owners said in a joint statement Thursday that Hulu “holds a unique and compelling strategic value to each of its owners” and that they would refocus on “mapping out its path to even greater success.”
Bidding on the service reached as high as around $2 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The owners decided collectively that it would be better to build out Hulu than sell it for a short-term gain, the person said.
The site had been bulking up on content to top up its roster of reruns from Disney’s ABC, News Corp.’s Fox and Comcast’s NBC. It recently said it would add Spanish-language programming from Univision, adding to a whole host of content from rival media companies including Viacom Inc.’s MTV and film studio Miramax.
It had even teamed up with documentary maker Morgan Spurlock on an original show series.
The service has been gaining traction while online streaming rival Netflix Inc. has stumbled badly.
Hulu said last month it had more than a million subscribers who pay $8 a month for a deep catalog of TV shows, less than a year after launching the premium tier last November. CEO Jason Kilar has said Hulu is on track to make around $500 million in revenue this year, up from $263 million in 2010, and that the company is profitable.
In comparison, Netflix had 24.6 million paying subscribers at the end of June, but it warned last month that it expected a net 600,000 to leave by the end of September after a series of unpopular decisions. They included hiking prices as much as 60 percent on millions of customers and splitting its streaming and DVD-by-mail services into two separately-billed operations, a move it has since reversed.
Hulu’s value may have fallen after consumers were seen railing against Netflix’s price increase and Netflix balked at paying an estimated $300 million a year for Disney and Sony movies through pay TV channel Starz, said Needham & Co. analyst Laura Martin.
With the market to pay to stream movies and TV shows cooling, media companies may have decided they could no longer cash out their stakes in Hulu and continue to sell content for top dollar to buyers like Netflix and Amazon.com Inc.
It may have seemed more profitable for Hulu to try to add subscribers and sell more advertising over the long haul.
“Suddenly, when those other entities can offer less cash … then owning Hulu looks more attractive,” she said.
Starz’ shows are still in search of an online home and could migrate to Hulu after its deal with Netflix expires in March, she said.
Hulu’s advertising model also has promise.
Despite lagging far behind online video sites like YouTube in terms of monthly visitors, Hulu viewers watch more ads than patrons of other sites. Hulu accounted for nearly a billion of the 5.7 billion ads viewed in the United States in August, the most of any entity, according to tracking firm comScore Inc.
Nike’s “So Win” Wins Super Clio
Last night (2/10) in New Orleans, the Kansas City Chiefs faced off against the Philadelphia Eagles in a repeat match up of 2023โs top teams, but this time, the Eagles came out on top. As the Eagles dominated the game from start to finish, it was the commercials that kept the audience entertained, and Nike scored points with the ad industry to win the 2025 Super Clio Award, a special honor given out by the Clio Awards for the most creative commercial to air during the Super Bowl. On advertisingโs biggest night, many brands leaned into familiar tropes like humor, talking animals, and famous faces to win over consumers, but Nikeโs โSo Win,โ by Wieden+Kennedy Portland, stood out for its pitch perfect pacing, script and message of strength. The brand returned to the Super Bowl stage after 27 years and made a bold statement that won over the Super Clio jury.
As the yellow Gatorade was poured in Caesars Superdome, the Clio Awardsโ jury of industry chiefs--brand leaders and creators of celebrated Super Bowl spots from the past and present--huddled to decide which ad scored the most points with consumers. Representatives from Verizon, PepsiCo Foods US, PRETTYBIRD, Highdive Advertising, Mischief, BBDO, VML and more voted and decided that the most creative spot of Super Bowl LIX was from Wieden+Kennedy Portland and would be awarded the coveted Lombardi-Trophy-sized Clio statue.
The Super Clio was introduced in 2015 in collaboration with WPPโs global chief creative officer, Rob Reilly. He and Clio Awards CEO Nicole Purcell recognized a need to highlight the revolutionary work thatโs introduced during the Super Bowl with an honor selected by the people who make ads and understand the nuances of producing a groundbreaking commercial for the big... Read More