In July 2013, executives from the three companies that co-owned Hulu — Comcast, 21st Century Fox and Walt Disney — had a conversation about their joint venture. Hulu, the video streaming service, had been on the auction block, and lucrative bids had come in from two Comcast rivals, AT&T and the satellite operator DirecTV, among other potential buyers.

Comcast told its counterparts that it could enhance Hulu’s value, which influenced their thinking about the fate of the service, according to several people with knowledge of the conversation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions were confidential. The issue was not money; some of the bids came in at more than $1 billion, one person said.

Within days, Fox and Disney announced that the sale of Hulu had been called off for the second time in two years.

The discussion among the companies, which took place at the Allen & Company conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, raises questions about the degree to which Comcast was trying to influence the operations of Hulu, which it acquired a stake in when it took over NBCUniversal in 2011. As part of the deal it struck with government regulators for that acquisition, Comcast had agreed not to “influence, interfere or attempt to influence or interfere” in the management or operation of Hulu. The company made similar agreements with the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission.