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Hulu's UK Foray Gets Delayed Further

As negotiations progress slowly with major UK broadcasters

Feb 16, 2010 13:58 GMT  ·  By
Hulu's negotiations progress slowly with major UK broadcasters
   Hulu's negotiations progress slowly with major UK broadcasters

Hulu has been more than successful in the US, not exactly raking it in but gaining a huge audience second only to YouTube. It has been trying to replicate its success overseas, specifically the UK, but it is having more trouble than it anticipated in the negotiations with the local TV networks. Despite talks going on for almost a year now, UK folks are going to have to wait for Hulu a while longer as the company's talks with Channel 4 and Five have been stalling and those with ITV have cooled off completely.

Hulu initially planned to have its UK service running by September 2009, something that obviously didn't happen, and is now hoping for a June 2010 time frame. That is, if negotiations go well with the major content creators in the UK, which isn't the case at the moment. Hulu is facing several, unrelated problems, which have put a dent on the talks and the recently launched competition, SeeSaw, isn't helping.

Talks with ITV are now frozen as the broadcaster is facing internal turmoil and can't focus on any sort of deal for the time being. The ITV's new chairman is looking to shake up things at the broadcaster and has entered the company into a 10-week strategic review period during which there will be no talks with Hulu.

So the US joint-venture, backed by three of the four major TV broadcasters in the country, is now focusing its negotiations on Channel 4 and Five. These have their own problems as the two broadcasters are unwilling to enter a deal with Hulu, under which the US company would control the advertising served next to their content. Currently, Hulu handles all the advertising on the site, but UK companies are more accustomed to choosing the ads associated with their shows.

Channel 4 also has an extensive deal with YouTube, under which the broadcaster gets to serve its own ads, so it has even less of an incentive to make its content available on Hulu as well. Hulu's biggest problem, though, is the newly launched SeeSaw video aggregator which already serves content from BBC Worldwide, Channel 4 and Five. [via The Telegraph]