Hulu Bids Expected to Range Between $500 Million and $2 Billion

NEW YORK - Initial bids for online video joint venture Hulu are due on Wednesday, with some bidders likely to offer a wide price range of about $500 million-$2 billion based on a range of possible content deal scenarios, the Wall Street Journal reported.
 
The paper cited people familiar with the situation as saying that the sale process could last "many more months" and may not result in a sale.

A person close to Hulu, led by CEO Jason Kilar, said the online video venture's board is expecting that a sale would come for as much as a few billion dollars. A Hulu spokeswoman declined to comment.

Suitors are expected to submit offers with price tags based on what types of TV shows Hulu's content owners, News Corp., Walt Disney and NBCUniversal, would license, when they shows would become available on Hulu and how long the content deals would run, the Journal said.

Owners are expected to be willing to give different sort of buyers different rights. Different suitors may value rights differently, according to the Journal. Google, Yahoo, Amazon.com,  DirecTV and others have been mentioned as companies that have looked at Hulu.

For executives at Yahoo, bidding for Hulu is a homecoming of sorts, the Journal highlighted. Yahoo's Americas head, Ross Levinsohn, and two of his deputies, James Heckman and Mickie Rosen, previously worked together at News Corp. and helped create the site. Rosen even directly worked on Hulu's original business plan. But Yahoo could be outbid by rivals with deeper pockets, such as Google and Amazon, the Journal said.