Comcast role in aborted Hulu deal raises questions for regulators

New York

IN July 2013, executives from the three companies that co-owned Hulu - Comcast, 21st Century Fox and Walt Disney - had a conversation about their joint venture. Hulu, the video streaming service, had been on the auction block, and lucrative bids had come in from two Comcast rivals, AT&T and the satellite operator DirecTV, among other potential buyers.

Comcast told its counterparts that it could enhance Hulu's value, which influenced their thinking about the fate of the service, according to several people with knowledge of the conversation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions were confidential. The issue was not money; some of the bids came in at more than US$1 billion, one person said.