Hulu gives up on UK TV service
According to reports online video aggregator Hulu has given up its efforts to launch a UK service following protracted negotiations over content with the big broadcast companies. Apparently negotiators for the content have reached a dead-end and they can see no way that the service will be available to the British public at any point in the foreseeable future.
Hulu which is owned by NBC Universal, News Corp and Disney has been unable to secure the rights to the much-needed British TV content. Hulu believe the main obstacle in the talks was the fact that British broadcasters are intent on producing their own similar service, in particular ITV and their catch up service known as the ITV Player.
The company was also negotiating with both Channel 4 and Channel 5 and again were unable to secure the necessary TV shows, in this case the broadcasters were unhappy with the concept of Hulu placing its own advertising around their content in the same fashion as it does in the United States, apparently were unhappy with this advertising concept.
They had reportedly offered ITV a lucrative equity share agreement, which the British broadcaster turned down. There is some evidence that the TV companies may be heading in the right direction as just this week figures from comScore showed that the online video system from ITV is the eighth most popular site in the country, with nearly 30,000,000 videos viewed, this being an increase of nearly 135% over last year’s figures.
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