Hulu is going from strength-to-strength, with a new milestone in Hulu Plus subscriber numbers and a healthy revenue forecast for the year. Kind of makes you wonder why the company is up for sale, doesn’t it?
Hulu Plus Growth Plus
I wasn’t keen on Hulu Plus when it launched. I’m still not if I’m perfectly honest. It just doesn’t offer enough to warrant dipping your hand in your pocket. Except 1 million people disagree with me and are now subscribing to the paid portion of Hulu.
According to a Hulu Blog post, June 2011 was the best month for adding Hulu Plus subscribers, and the total of 875,000, when combined with those currently signed up for a free trial, means the 1 million milestone has been reached.
Not only that but Hulu CEO Jason Kilar claims the company is on course to make $500 million in revenue in 2011, or half a billion as he puts it. Which prompts just one question in my mind…
So Why For Sale?
If things are going so well, and in terms of growth and revenue they really are, then why is Hulu currently up for sale? Which, by all accounts, it is, even if it hasn’t officially been confirmed by the company or its current owners.
I can only assume News Corp., Walt Disney, Comcast, and Providence Equity want to cash out when the service is still growing and still capable of turning a healthy profit. Especially if the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! get into a bidding war.
But it’s almost as though the current owners know something we don’t; that Hulu is about to stall or have its fortunes reversed by some as-yet-unknown development. A lack of new content, perhaps?
Conclusions
I’m a total layman in the field of business and big acquisitions and takeovers, so there are probably very good reasons why Hulu is on the market for a new buyer. But it seems strange to me that a healthy company heading a growing sector is being offloaded at this time.
