An anonymous source with direct knowledge of the transaction identified pay television operators DirecTV and Time Warner Cable as among the bidders, aside from Yahoo and the consortium led by Peter Chermin.
The four bidders would be competing between themselves and with private equity firms Kohlberg, Kravis Roberts & Co, Guggenheim Partners and Silver Lake Partners for the online firm owned jointly by Walt Disney Corp and News Corp.
Hulu is managed through their ownership's respective subsidiaries, nameky ABC Corp for Walt Disney and Fox for News Corp. Another investor in the Hulu venture is NBC, but has given up its participation on the day to day operations after it had acquired NBC Universal to avoid antitrust issues.
The owners had sought to sell Hulu before but pulled the site out of the market in 2011 after it had fielded offers from many interested buyers. The sale again came to fore after its CEO and founder Jason Kilar announced he would be stepping down by the end of March. Since that time, Hulu has been headed by interim CEO Andy Forssell.
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