With his company on the auction block and his contract up in the air, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar announced on the company’s blog Wednesday that the streaming service is on pace to pass 1 million paid subscribers by the end of the summer.
Previously, Hulu had projected it would meet that benchmark at the end of the year.
Though Hulu is privately held, Kilar said he was taking to the blog to share results from the streaming service’s second quarter. He did not reveal if the company was proftiable, but wrote that it was on track to hit $500 million in revenues. Its subscription base hovers at 875,000 (See chart below).
Also read: CEO Jason Kilar Is Contract-Less as Hulu Seeks Buyer
In the write-up, Kilar never acknowledges the elephant in the room — that Hulu’s owners Disney, News Corp., Comcast’s NBC/Universal and Providence Equity are trying to attract buyers. That despite the fact that Disney CEO Bob Iger acknowledged publicly at Allen & Co.'s Sun Valley media conference that Hulu's owners are "committed to selling."
Representatives from tech giants such as Google and Microsoft have been meeting with Hulu throughout the week, to see if the company's fiscal outlook and price tag are to their liking.
“We remain a team that believes in the value of convictions, thoughtful stubbornness, and the relentless pursuit of better ways,” Kilar wrote, without saying under whose leadership that pursuit would take place.
For Kilar's status within the company is unsecured. Kilar has chosen to let his contract expire, according to an individual close to the company. Hulu has declined to comment on Kilar's contract.
Without giving many specifics, Kilar said that Hulu has retained the largest market share in the U.S. online video advertising space. Unsaid, is that Netflix, the biggest player in the streaming business, does not run advertisements.
In other news, Kilar said Hulu has expanded the number of devices on which it offers its premium paid service Hulu Plus. In the past 90 days, the company has made Hulu Plus available on Xbox 360 and Kinect, Android smart phones, Tivo Premiere DVRs, and Samsung Blu-ray players.