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Hulu’s take-two on the auction block just hit the cutting-room floor.
The owners of the pioneering video-streaming service abruptly pulled the plug on a sale process yesterday — the second for Hulu in less than three years — and instead pledged $750 million to fuel a new leg of growth for the site.
“We had meaningful conversations with a number of potential partners and buyers, each with impressive plans and offers to match,” said Chase Carey, president and operating chief of 21st Century Fox, which owns Hulu jointly with Disney and NBCUniversal, a unit of Comcast.
The owners, however, signaled they have ironed out internal differences over Hulu’s strategic direction, namely whether it would sell ads or subscriptions.
The strategic tug-of-war, with Fox advocating a subscription-based model and Disney pushing to sell ads, had been partly responsible for Hulu’s being put up for sale in the first place, according to sources.
Bidders included DirecTV and a partnership between AT&T and former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin.
A spokesman for DirecTV declined to comment, and a spokesman for Chernin didn’t respond to a query.
Another bidder, Time Warner Cable, was interested in investing in the service alongside the other owners.
Bids were said to top $1 billion, but Hulu’s owners were reluctant to sell the site to a “pay-TV operator” such as DirecTV, which could pose competitive threats, according to one insider briefed on the situation.
“It would have been an epic mistake to sell [Hulu] to another content distributor,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG Research, told The Post.
Hulu’s fresh cash injection will go to “people, technology and content,” Disney CEO Bob Iger told reporters yesterday at the Allen & Co. media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.
“We believe by attracting great people … this thing could really turn out to be something big,” Iger said.
The surprise cancellation riled bidders who had spent months participating in the auction. Some griped that Hulu’s owners were never clear on whether they would allow a buyer access to the movies and TV shows they produce and, if so, for how long.
“Perfect ending to the Hulu story,” one disgusted bidder told The Post.
Sources said Fox and Disney had struggled partly over the fact that Hulu’s next-day streaming service for TV shows competes directly with their own broadcast businesses.
In mid-2011, Hulu’s owners called for a sale after receiving an unsolicited bid but scrapped the process a few months later.
Launched in 2008, Hulu attracts more than 30 million unique visitors a month. With more than 4 million paid subscribers last year — double the previous year — Hulu posted revenue of $690 million. Still, the service isn’t profitable.