• by P.J. Bednarski  @pjbtweet, August 3, 2016

Time Warner, long rumored to be a potential partner for Hulu, on Wednesday announced it had acquired a 10% stake in the video service best known as a repository of recently aired network shows.

Hulu is otherwise owned by The Walt Disney Company, 21st Century Fox and Comcast Corp., the parents of ABC, Fox and NBC and other cable outlets. Time Warner owns CNN, HBO, TNT, TBS,  Cartoon Network and others. In the new arrangement, the original partners will reduce their stakes.

Variety said Time Warner is paying $583 million for its slice of Hulu.

The deal comes as Hulu prepares to launch its own streaming service in 2017, which would be a potent potential avenue for cord-cutters and millennial cord-nevers.  Time Warner may be conceding that old school cable subscriptions are, indeed, seriously challenged by OTT competitors.

In addition, the Time Warner association with Hulu may signal its intention to up its production of original content so it could become a more serious competitor to Netflix in the streaming video business.