Welcome to the Geek Choice Blog

Google trying to buy Hulu

September 7th, 2011 by Joseph Ruthaford

There has been rumblings throughout the online video world have been that Hulu is on the market and there have been many suitors from Amazon, Yahoo, and even the dish network. Well now it looks like Google is stepping in on this and making a play for Hulu. There is no confirmed bids yet and this could be either rumor or conjecture at this point. However the bids have been reported to be between $1.5 billion and $2 billion for Hulu. Google seems to want something much more than that, and is willing to pay much more to get it. If you want to speculate, you could imagine Google asking for access to more content, for a longer period of time, and perhaps offering up a couple billion dollars more.
Since that’s not what Hulu’s owners have put on the table, “normally we would have thrown people out if they’d said that,” says an executive familiar with the sales process. But Google “indicated that there’s enough money” involved so that Hulu’s owners are at least thinking about continuing the discussion.
One big problem with the Google proposal: Hulu was created in large part as the TV networks’ response to YouTube, and their fear that Google would swallow up the Web video ecosystem.
So could Hulu back off from Google to stop him from controlling the market or could we be looking at something were Google will get what it wants and take a strangle hold on the video web market. Only time will truly tell on this one.

Related posts:

1. Apple to possiblely add Hulu to its family
2. Google making money
3. Groupon has the biggest internet IPO since Google
4. Google bought Motorola for more than just it’s pretty patents
5. Android market on pace with Apple