Hulu takes itself off the auction block and is no longer for sale

By Mike Dunn October 13, 2011

It has been an exciting summer for video streaming company Hulu. NBC Universal, Fox, and Disney, the owners of Hulu, have been trying to sell the company to the highest bidder. The bidding adventure has officially ended today without a winner; Hulu announced on the company blog that it has decided that it is no longer for sale.

There have been several rumors about who has been trying to buy Hulu including Yahoo, Apple, Google, and DirectTV. The rumored purchase offers ranged from 500 million all the way up to 2 billion dollars. For that purchase price the new owner would receive exclusive rights to all of the current Hulu content for two years. Seeing how most of the content on Hulu is provided by its parent companies it was never clear how negotiations would operate at the end of the two year contract.

The official blog post offered this quote as some insight as to why the company is no longer for sale.

“Since Hulu holds a unique and compelling strategic value to each of its owners, we have terminated the sale process and look forward to working together to continue mapping out its path to even greater success. Our focus now rests solely on ensuring that our efforts as owners contribute in a meaningful way to the exciting future that lies ahead for Hulu.”

It seems as though the highest offer to buy Hulu wasn’t quite high enough, and it will be business as usual for Hulu for the time being.

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