Hulu's board reaches out to potential buyers to gauge interest

Hulu's board has approached potential buyers to gauge their interest in buying the online video service, three sources close to the company told Reuters, as owners News Corp and Walt Disney weigh what to do with their interests in the five-year-old company.

The board sounded out several possible buyers as part of an internal strategic review begun recently, but it has not received a formal offer, one of the sources said on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private. It was unclear how many parties Hulu had contacted.

Hulu spokeswoman Elisa Schreiber and News Corp's Nathaniel Brown declined to comment. Disney had no immediate comment.

News Corp and Disney are also considering other options, including buying each other out, one of the sources said on Monday on condition of anonymity.

The two media companies have for years pondered the direction of a service that now has more than 3 million subscribers to its premium service and last year generated about $700 million.

A third owner, NBC parent Comcast, gave up corporate control as a condition of buying NBC Universal.

The owners shopped Hulu around as recently as 2011 and had at one point considered an initial public offering.