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Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

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Re: Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

#81

Post by samstave »

Retric wrote: post #51
kevinalexbrown wrote: post #45

Can anyone explain why Hulu wants to sell to a third party? I understand there's infighting according to the article, but it's unclear to me why one of the owners doesn't buy out the rest. Is there some general principle behind not selling to your competitors and choosing a party currently without a huge stake in television or movies like Yahoo? I'm curious about both reasons specific to this particular deal and gene…

It's all about licencing. "In 2011, Hulu’s owners put the company up for sale and were looking for a bid of at least $2 billion; in exchange, they would offer content licenses that would run for two to three years." "Last month, former News Corp. COO Peter Chernin submitted a starting bid of $500 million, with the understanding that he would be willing to pay more for extended licenses." Basically, a huge chunk of Hu…

I have had a Hulu account for the last two years. I recently canceled it.

Their content is actually not that good, and on top of it, you're forced to watch commercials as well. The service was terrible.

Re: Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

#82

Post by anoncow »

camus wrote: post #74
anoncow wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a ceo, but buying hulu looks like a good idea if they have the cash. Better than rolling out a new one from scratch. I would say simple business decisions may make a good businessperson.

You cant roll out a Hulu from scratch. It is basically a venture between content providers. How much TV content does Yahoo produce ? none. It is a huge mistake to buy Hulu. I dont know how much they'll be paying for this but it is worth 0 money, just like Tumblr.

This may very well be true. But you shouldn't discount some points.

1. Yahoo will negotiate some kind of licensing agreement.

2. Yahoo will benefit from a known name and existing users.

Re: Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

#83

Post by greghinch »

bernardom wrote: post #33
criley wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hulu, Netflix and Amazon all produce original content and are perfectly positioned to disrupt them as their distribution volume increases. Uhh, as a Hulu subscriber, I'll just let you know: If I only had "Hulu" content to pick from, I'd cancel my subscription immediately. It's not great stuff, barely worth paying for and CERTAINLY not worth both paying for and sitting through the same 4 advertisements over-and-over…

No, no, no. That's not what I meant, sorry if it wasn't clear. The point isn't that they're buying Hulu for its original programming. It's that if they want to become a major player in the original content space, they'll need a huge user base to start with. For that, they need licensed content. In other words, my thesis is that TV networks can be disrupted by someone else making original content and distributing it o…

Netflix seems to be doing better at this model. But I'd agree the more competition as we can have in the space, the better.

Re: Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

#86

Post by _b8r0 »

I think this is a smart buy. Buying netflix would be stupidly expensive, but buying Hulu and changing it to out-netflix netflix could be a really good play to pick up a platform fairly cheaply and run with it. The question is whether or not Yahoo! has the dynamism to do that, and I'm not sure anyone other than Marissa Mayer has the answer, if her.

Here in the UK, iPlayer dominates the online market. If she can come with a paid for equivalent getting things like Game of Thrones and original content on the level of house of cards, Yahoo could really challenge that.

Re: Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

#87

Post by anoncow »

Retric wrote: post #51
kevinalexbrown wrote: post #45

Can anyone explain why Hulu wants to sell to a third party? I understand there's infighting according to the article, but it's unclear to me why one of the owners doesn't buy out the rest. Is there some general principle behind not selling to your competitors and choosing a party currently without a huge stake in television or movies like Yahoo? I'm curious about both reasons specific to this particular deal and gene…

It's all about licencing. "In 2011, Hulu’s owners put the company up for sale and were looking for a bid of at least $2 billion; in exchange, they would offer content licenses that would run for two to three years." "Last month, former News Corp. COO Peter Chernin submitted a starting bid of $500 million, with the understanding that he would be willing to pay more for extended licenses." Basically, a huge chunk of Hu…

So yahoo must be thinking of getting a bargain licensing deal for 2-3 years, with eventually aiming for yahoo-backed content(like netflix and arrested development and firefly) and hulu owners must be looking at cutting losses.

Re: Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

#89

Post by drgath »

Androsynth wrote: post #66
bernardom wrote: post #6

Holy cow. This is a big deal . There is no reason why TV networks need to exist the way they do. Hulu, Netflix and Amazon all produce original content and are perfectly positioned to disrupt them as their distribution volume increases. Even the current distribution channel is being disrupted by Aereo. Hulu is a a huge asset. If Yahoo gets in this game, they have a massive number of users, photos (flickr), blogposts (…

>users, photos (flickr), blogposts (tumblr), mail, content Other than content, arent those second rate internet properties though? Maybe thats their plan in order not to compete with google/amazon. (i know flickr is used by professionals, but instagram probably has more users)

Flickr has an estimated 87 million users [1], and Instagram has 100 million. Note sure what your definition of "second rate" is (quality or quantity?) but Flickr is much better quality than Instagram, especially after the recent update. Regarding email, Outlook, GMail, and Y! Mail are pretty much all tied at 290'ish million users worldwide, but Y! owns the top spot in the US [3]. Most of Y!'s media properties are #1 in their respective areas as well (News, Sports, OMG, etc).

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/20/4121574/flickr-chief-marku...

[2] http://instagram.com/press/#

[3] http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57543177-93/gmail-edges-hot...

Re: Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

#90

Post by mikeryan »

bernardom wrote: post #33
criley wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hulu, Netflix and Amazon all produce original content and are perfectly positioned to disrupt them as their distribution volume increases. Uhh, as a Hulu subscriber, I'll just let you know: If I only had "Hulu" content to pick from, I'd cancel my subscription immediately. It's not great stuff, barely worth paying for and CERTAINLY not worth both paying for and sitting through the same 4 advertisements over-and-over…

No, no, no. That's not what I meant, sorry if it wasn't clear. The point isn't that they're buying Hulu for its original programming. It's that if they want to become a major player in the original content space, they'll need a huge user base to start with. For that, they need licensed content. In other words, my thesis is that TV networks can be disrupted by someone else making original content and distributing it o…

But this is only buying an extremely limited license to content. Its a catch 22 the only reason Hulu has had any success is because its had premium content provided by its current owners. If Hulu goes independent the content rights are likely not getting renewed at their current rates.

Note that there were rumors that Google already made an overture to buy Hulu at a price rumored to be 2x the current price but with much longer licensing terms and were turned down.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/google-dish-made-highe...

Unless Yahoo wants to focus more on original programming for Hulu (a strategy I'm behind) then buying it for its current content rights is a fools bet.

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