DISNEY IS BUYING STAKE IN HULU.COM

Walt Disney Co. is acquiring a stake in Hulu.com, gaining a new Internet outlet for films and television shows on the third-most popular video Web site.

Disney joins NBC Universal, News Corp. and Providence Equity Partners as investors, the Burbank, Calif.-based company said yesterday in a statement. Disney will get a 27 percent stake, near parity with NBC and News Corp., which owns The Post, and will invest less than $35 million, said a person with knowledge of the plans who declined to be identified because the terms aren’t public.

Hulu.com, which already runs primetime TV shows from Fox and NBC, is gaining popularity and became the third most-watched Internet video site in March, according to researcher ComScore Inc. Broadcasters are looking for new outlets for programs in the face of falling advertising sales and the loss of viewers to the Internet.

“We are trying to make our shows as accessible as possible,” Anne Sweeney, president of the Disney-ABC Television Group, said in an interview. “We saw growth in casual viewers that we hadn’t tapped and that Hulu had tapped. There is room to expand an audience that wasn’t already coming to ABC.com.”