Hulu, a joint venture between NBC Universal and New Corp, may add another media giant to its owneship. Paid Content, reports that Disney is in talks with Hulu on taking an equity stake in the company. If this happens Hulu will probably have access to all of disney owned content.
The Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) Company could wind up with an equity stake in Hulu in exchange for adding ABC programming to the NBC Universal-News Corp joint venture, a source familiar with the situation tells paidContent. It’s not clear how much of Disney’s television programming is involved beyond ABC—a second source says all Disney content has been discussed but it centers on ABC; other possibilities could include ESPN (not likely given ESPN’s reliance on license fees from cable operators and others) and, if not the Disney Channel, some offshoots. The discussions, dormant for a while, have picked up again recently and are described as “serious” by both sources. A third source close to the situation said the discussions with Disney are “definitely real”—and more so than before—but cautioned against saying any deal has been reached.