Finally, Hulu is no longer up for sale. Owners (21st Century Fox, NBC Universal and The Walt Disney Company) decided not to sell this video streaming website. They also revealed their plan to invest $750 million cash in company to boost growth.
Hulu has attracted many big companies including DirecTV, Guggenheim Digital, Time Warner Cable and Yahoo to bid. In recent weeks, DirecTV and AT&T submitted bids of about $1 billion for Hulu. Hulu’s owners had set a Friday deadline for bids. After that, they decided not to sell company.
“We believe the best path forward for Hulu is a meaningful recapitalization that will further accelerate its growth under the current ownership structure,” 21st Century Fox COO Chase Carey said. “We had meaningful conversations with a number of potential partners and buyers, each with impressive plans and offers to match, but with 21st Century Fox and Disney fully aligned in our collective vision and goals for the business, we decided to continue to empower the Hulu team.”
Hulu was launched back in 2008. It aggregates premium online television content from over 400 content partners. It has more than 30 million unique visitors. It offers the service for free with ads. It also has a premium service with $7.99-per-month subscription. Premium service was launched in 2010 that has more than 4 million subscribers.
Few reporters also says that the bid may be the effort of getting the true value of streaming video service.
This is not the first time when owners have called of the sale off company. They did same back in late 2011.