Talks have involved the possibility of Time Warner becoming an equal shareholder in Hulu, alongside Walt Disney Company, 21st Century Fox and Comcast, the Journal reported.
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The company is rumored to be pursuing a stake in the subscription video on demand streaming site, at a time when such SVOD services have been blamed for wooing viewers away from cable, which Time Warner is heavily invested in. Hulu’s current owners are committed to injecting Dollars 750 million into Hulu. Time Warner already owns Warner Bros. studios, HBO and TruTV. Reps for Hulu did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Online streaming service Hulu is in talks to sell a stake to Time Warner Inc.at a valuation pegged at $5 billion. Time Warner Cable – the cable operator – was once a part of Time Warner. The deal brought a large collection of high profile films to Hulu – including “Hunger Games: Catching Fire”, “World War Z” and “Transformers: Age of Extinction – which previously had been on Netflix”.
This isn’t the first time Hulu was involved in a rumored sale.
J.P. Morgan said in a September research note that the market is underappreciating Hulu’s strategic value to its owners. However, they said nothing has been finalized as yet and there is no surety that it will end in an agreement. That gives it access to programming from NBC, ABC and Fox and has been a major selling point of the service for would-be cord-cutters. Now, a fourth telecom giant could pick up its own share of the streaming video platform.
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Keach Hagey contributed to this article.
