Yesterday I suggested that Yahoo’s interest in Hulu is more stop-gap than strategic. That doesn’t mean its bid should not be taken seriously, however.

Of all the suitors identified so far, in fact, Yahoo’s ongoing operation of Hulu is probably the least problematic for Hulu’s current broadcast network owners. Given that all the bids have come in lower than News Corp. and Disney reportedly were looking for, Yahoo might just win by default.

Hulu’s founding broadcast network partners have never quite figured out what they want their over-the-top offspring to be when it grows up — in particular how much autonomy it should be given to pursue its own strategic destiny when it conflicts with their own. Even now, after soliciting bids, News Corp. and Disney remain coy about what content rights would be included in a deal. One reason the initial bids came in so low, in fact, is that potential buyers are likely trying to smoke out the sellers as to what, exactly, is for sale. Given the sellers ambivalence, Yahoo could end up looking like the safest bet, precisely because it probably wouldn’t do all that much with Hulu (Yahoo reportedly made multiple offers, ranging from $600 million to $800 million depending on what rights are included).

Three of the bidders — Guggenheim Digital, KKR, and Silver Lake Management — are private equity firm, who obviously have no interest in operating Hulu for any length of time. Rather, they’d likely be looking to repackage Hulu, perhaps in a bundle with other assets, and sell it to a strategic buyer. To do that, they would need maximum flexibility on content rights, including the ability to reassign those rights when the time came. There’s no predicting what would become of Hulu in their hands.

Two of the other bidders — DirecTV and Time Warner Cable — are MVPDs, with which Fox and Disney already have complex — and often contentious — carriage, retransmission, and TV Everywhere deals in place. Hulu in their hands could complicate those relationships greatly by creating a separate deal structure governing online rights.

Peter Chernin, one of the founders of Hulu while he was at News Corp., is also in the hunt, but his reported bid is apparently at the bottom end of the range.

That leaves Yahoo, whose bid(s) is apparently at least as aggressive as any other. More critically, Yahoo is likely to continue operating Hulu more or less as it operates now, with a free, ad-supported tier for non-exclusive catalog content and a paid tier for more recent or exclusive content.  Hulu in Yahoo’s hands would be fundamentally unthreatening to the networks’ current position. Given Yahoo’s ability to ramp up Hulu ad sales (such as by bundling Hulu inventory with inventory on other Yahoo properties) it is also the most likely to deliver on any deal that involved an earn-out provision or an ongoing revenue-share.

Wrap it up, they’ll take it.