• GigaOm, Thursday, January 15, 2009 12:01 PM

Blogger Om Malik thinks that Yahoo, with a new CEO in charge, ought to make "a bold move," like buying the fast-growing News Corp.-NBC Universal joint video venture, Hulu. He adds that CEO Jason Kilar would make the perfect replacement for Sue Decker, who will leave a big hole at Yahoo's No. 2 slot when she finally departs.

Malik admits that the chances that Kilar would be interested in being Carol Bartz's No. 2 are "not high." After all, Kilar currently presides over the hottest new media property in Hollywood, with an estimated value of a billion dollars in less than a year of operation. However, one thing that Hulu lacks and Yahoo has in spades is traffic. It also has an infrastructure that could help the platform scale, not to mention working relationships with major national brand advertisers. "By acquiring Hulu, (Yahoo) would instantly become a credible competitor to Google's YouTube," Malik declares.

OK, but what's in it for NBC and News Corp.? Malik says that Hulu's parents were always looking to make some sort of return on their investment. He estimates that they could easily sell Hulu for $2 billion worth of Yahoo stock, netting Rupert Murdoch a nice chunk of Yahoo shares, which would come in handy if the Australian media mogul ever wanted to sell MySpace to Yahoo. NBC, meanwhile, would gain a significant Internet presence.

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