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That Google wants Hulu, it’s certainly no surprise. Hulu would be an amazing asset for Google. They would instantly make Google TV a hit if they had Hulu on board, which is why Larry himself flew to Los Angeles to talk to the Hulu owners about bidding a whooping $4 billion on Hulu. That’s more than twice as much as the highest 2nd bidder, Dish, which also just released a Netflix competitor recently, with the acquisition of Blockbuster.
Dish bid only $1.9 billion and managed to beat both Yahoo and Amazon. Yahoo was expected to lose because they’ve just lost their CEO, and I can’t expect them to take the bid very seriously in a time like this, especially when they are getting short on cash.
Amazon on the other hand could’ve really used Hulu, too, but it seems they are not willing to spend too much on it, most likely because they don’t think the content deals that Hulu owners have in place are enough. These deals are only for 2 years, and after that negotiating access to shows may get very tough for whoever owns Hulu, because the networks wouldn’t have much to gain by helping Hulu after the sale.
But it seems the Hulu owners expected to get significantly more on it than what Dish was bidding. They were probably expecting like $2.5-$3 billion on it, and I don’t think Dish is willing to give them that. Google, however, has already bid $4 billion, but that’s with their own conditions, which probably means they want at least 5 year access to shows, no silly delays, and maybe the removal of the requirement to have a cable subscription as well.
With Google’s advertising platform, they could soon make Hulu international and be able to keep it free, too. They could integrate it with many of their other products, including Android, Google TV, Google+, and even Youtube (for the shows). Youtube is rumored to get TV-like channels anyway, but they might lack some content, and Hulu’s content should help with that.
The networks are still not sure whether to even sell Hulu or not, but Google’s $4 billion offer must be very tempting to them. We should find out what they decided soon enough.