Hulu, the U.S. online video service, is planning to bow in the U.K. this September — and may be close to reaching content deals with local broadcasters.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that Hulu has approached ITV, the British private terrestrial web, regarding a stake in the operator, which is co-owned by News Corp., NBC Universal, Disney and Providence Equity Partners.
Hulu is believed to be offering U.K. broadcasters equity stakes in a U.K. version of the service plus a share of online advertising revenues.
A Hulu spokeswoman said: “Hulu continues to investigate opportunities for international expansion but doesn’t have any details to share at this time.”
One difficulty facing a potential U.K. launch is clearing rights.
While premium fare like “The Simpsons” and “Heroes” are unlikely to be available to British users of Hulu, some 3,000 hours of other U.S. shows are expected to be featured once rights issues are resolved.
via – Variety.
Still nothing about Canada….
finally
Hurray!!! Annoying shows like Heroes won’t be on there, I would have thought NBC would lower the cost so they can make more money on Heroes for something like this.
where’s my iPhone app????
Those in the UK probably shouldn’t get too excited about this just yet because whilst Hulu is very keen to expand into the UK (and has been for a while) there are serious issues surrounding how viable it is, at least right now. All of the commercial broadcasters but specifically ITV are in a lot of financial trouble right now so exactly how much money or resources they’d have to put into this is questionable. There are also issues regarding competition rights in the UK – Kangaroo a similar service to Hulu that was going to see the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 (and possibly Five) band together to share content online at the same site was shut down before it even got off the ground by various watchdogs because of issues with competition. As it is I think Hulu are going to struggle to get this off the ground right now.
Its also worth noting my understanding is that Hulu are not trying to open up Hulu.com to the UK but trying to launch a separate UK version of the site (likely Hulu.co.uk or something similar) that operates in the same way as the US site with new episodes of any given show being put online after they’ve aired in the UK. This isn’t going to be a chance for those in the UK to legally watch US shows as they air in the US, so something like Dollhouse wouldn’t go online in the UK after its aired in the US but after its aired in the UK instead, assuming that Sci-Fi take part in this. It seems to me that, that’s the only viable way this would work as well because I can’t see the US and UK networks being happy about opening up Hulu to UK viewers and it would absolutely damage international license fees to do that.
It also gets more complicated when you factor in that the BBC likely won’t be involved in this and they have the rights to Heroes for example so there’s little chance of them continuing to pay such a big price for a show that’s already available online at Hulu.
The major issue in regards to licensing will be how long the shows can stay up on Hulu. As it is all the UK networks are putting these shows up online anyway although I think most of them are only doing it for a week. I don’t really pay much attention though so I could be wrong on that.