In another win for cable cord-cutters, Time Warner has become the latest media company to invest in streaming service Hulu.
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Time Warner Inc. has reached a deal with Hulu that will see the media conglomerate acquire a 10 percent stake in the video-streaming service.
Time Warner’s revenues decreased 5.4% year-over-year to $6.95 billion, and also missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $7.15 billion.
Variety said Time Warner is paying $583 million for its slice of Hulu. A year ago it introduced its own streaming service, “HBO Now”, and made its content accessible on Dish Network Corp’s DISH.O Sling TV streaming service, which offers a small bundle of channels. Since then the company has been offering streaming subscription services for some of its other popular brands, like Adult Swim.
Following rumors about such plans, Hulu confirmed back in May that it will be launching its own live streaming TV service, something similar in nature to Sling TV and PlayStation Vue.
Time Warner Inc. joins other Hulu stakeholders that include Disney, Comcast and 21st Century Fox.
Time Warner’s deal with Hulu comes nearly a month after Comcast said that it’s adding Netflix to its X1 set-top boxes, another move from a traditional media titan collaborating with a streaming media site.
The company posted lower second-quarter net income of $951 million. But quarterly revenue declined to $7 billion from $7.35 billion from a year earlier, mainly to slowing revenue growth in its HBO business and box office. Both news programming and original content from each of Time Warner’s networks will be made available to watch live at the same time the shows air on regular television. But the service is adding a live TV option too, and with today’s announcement it is getting a lot more channels.
Time Warner has a multifaceted SVOD strategy.
Earnings, adjusted for one-time costs, came to $1.29 per share.
Shares of Time Warner jumped by as much as 3.59% to $78.50 in premarket trading this morning.
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Analysts were expecting full-year earnings of US$5.39 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
