The stakeholders of Hulu include major media houses such as Disney, Fox and ComCast.
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Its partnership with Hulu, a video company that competes with Netflix, calls for Time Warner’s “full suite of networks to be carried on Hulu’s live-streaming service” that will be launched next year, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said in a statement.
Details of the investment were not disclosed but some reports said Time Warner was investing some Dollars 580 million, which would value Hulu at close to USD 6 billion. In a press release, neither Hulu or Time Warner said there were plans to nix next-day programming, which allowed certain shows to be accessed 24 hours after airing on television.
Time Warner, which owns Warner Bros. film studio and TV channels HBO, TNT and CNN, has been facing a drop in subscriber numbers with cable cord cutting increasing in the U.S. and audiences opting for online streaming.
To attract cord-cutters and compete directly with Netflix, Time Warner previous year introduced HBO Now, a standalone video-streaming service. Shares of Time Warner are down almost 14% in the last 12 months, but are up more than 17% in the year to date, outperforming the S&P 500 Index, which is up more than 5%.
As part of the deal, Time Warner’s Turner division – which comprises the cable networks TNT, TBS, CNN, Cartoon Network, and Adult Swim – will be part of Hulu’s forthcoming live TV streaming offer launching early next year. Time Warner is unable to get a seat on Hulu’s board of directors with a 10% stake. That stake doesn’t equal the stakes of Hulu’s current investors 21st Century Fox Inc., Walt Disney Co. and Comcast Corp’s NBCUniversal.
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Time Warner Inc. posted second-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates as the owner of HBO and Turner found ways to squeeze more revenue out of cable and satellite distributors. Analysts polled by FactSet expect $5.39 per share.
