Yahoo withdraws Hulu bid; Dish has edge

Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO), with its own future in flux, has decided to withdraw its bid for online video aggregator Hulu, according to reports.

The move leaves Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Dish Network (Nasdaq: DISH) as the remaining players on an ever-diminishing field, The Wall Street Journal said. A bevy of bidders, which reportedly included AT&T (NYSE: T) at one point, have backed off the sale as worries about the future availability of content were raised.

Dish, reports the paper, may be the frontrunner with a $1.9 billion bid for the company. Google, which apparently has bid more, likely isn't being considered as it made demands for a content deal that were unacceptable to the three owners.

But Hulu, placed up for sale by its owners, Disney (NYSE: DIS), News Corp. (Nasdaq: NWSA) and Comcast's (Nasdaq: CMCSA) NBCUniversal, may be off the market, its owners now unwilling to part with it.

Bids were due last week and are now being reviewed by financial advisors, The Journal said.

For more:
- see this report

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