Bids for Hulu, which had been due on Wednesday, Aug. 24, have been extended to the end of the week, Reuters is reporting, citing unnamed sources familiar with situation.
The deadline was reported extended so that potential bidders would have more time to examine Hulu's finances.
Hulu declined to comment Wednesday on potential bidders but published reports have tipped Yahoo, Google, DirecTV and Amazon.com as likely suitors.
Reuters is also reporting that "South Korean giant SK Telecom is also believed to have entered the fray, according to one of the people close to the sale process, though an official bid from the company could not be confirmed."
Hulu's financial position has been improving over the last year.
In a July post, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar wrote that the company had 875,000 subs at the end of June 2011, up from around 250,000 in December of last year and that the company was on track to bring in $500 million this year in revenue. That represents a dramatic increase over $263 million in 2010 revenue.
Kilar also pointed out that they were on track to reach the one million sub market quicker than expected -- sometime this summer instead of by the end of 2011 as Kilar had originally forecast -- and that they were producing considerable revenue for content owners, about $8 a subscriber.
In his blog discussing first quarter 2011 results, Kilar estimated that content providers would get about $300 million from Hulu in all of 2011.
Advertising has also been on the upswing. "We served approximately 50 percent more advertisers in Q1 2011 than we did in Q1 2010 (specifically, 289 advertisers in Q1 2011, up from 194 in Q1 2010)," Kilar wrote.
Reports on the bidding process have indicated that bids for the online site could range as high as $2 billion.
Hulu is jointly owned by NBCUniversal, News Corp, Disney and Providence Equity Partners.
