The auction for Hulu is heating up with second-round bids due tomorrow, The Post has learned.
A number of suitors, including DirecTV, Yahoo! and Time Warner Cable, have already submitted offers in the $1 billion range for the Web TV hub.
Time Warner Cable also faced potential competition from its former parent, Time Warner, which spun off the cable unit in 2009. Time Warner mulled making an offer but isn’t following through, sources said.
A Time Warner spokesperson said, “We don’t comment on rumor and speculation.”
Time Warner expressed interest in acquiring Hulu in 2011, when the owners first explored a sale of the streaming video service, sources added.
Time Warner has been the biggest champion of TV Everywhere, an industry-wide initiative that allows cable subscribers to watch shows online for free.
But the concept has been slow to catch on with consumers, who are required to log in to the service to prove they are paying cable customers.
Time Warner’s HBO premium channel has a streaming option, HBO Go, offered only to paying customers. If it were to offer it separately from cable service, Time Warner would risk the wrath of pay-TV distributors who pay it billions to offer HBO to subscribers.
Time Warner Cable has held talks with Charter Communications and other pay-TV operators about joining its bid but is going it alone for now.
Cable giant Comcast is already an owner of Hulu alongside News Corp. and Disney. (News Corp. owns The Post.)
The bids for Hulu are said to be in the $1 billion range. DirecTV, Yahoo! and media veteran Peter Chernin, with the backing of Providence Equity and Qatar Holdings, were among the early bidders.
Source said Chernin has also been talking to AT&T about joining his bid. A rep wasn’t immediately available for comment.
Private-equity firms KKR and Silver Lake Management, in partnership with talent agency WME, have also submitted offers. Guggenheim Partners, owner of Dick Clark Productions, is making a play as well.
Sources said PE firms may start to team with other bidders after the second-round bids shake out.