News Corp's YouTube rival Hulu to begin testing

by Jacquie Bowser, Brand Republic 30-Aug-07, 09:45

LONDON - News Corporation and NBC Universal will begin testing in October for their rival video website to YouTube, dubbed Hulu, but the date of the site's formal launch remains unknown.

The two media giants first announced the joint venture back in March, originally referring to it as Newsite, but its new title of Hulu has just been revealed.

Jason Kilar, Hulu chief executive, said: "Objectively, Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself.

"Subjectively, Hulu strikes us as an inherently fun name, one that captures the spirit of the service we're building."

News Corp and NBC plan to make thousands of hours of programming, movies and clips available from the extensive back catalogue of TV shows and films that the two companies own, which include 'Heroes', 'Battlestar Galactica', '24' and 'The Simpsons', as well as 'Borat' and 'Little Miss Sunshine'.

The service will be an advertiser-funded initiative, launched free to consumers. Several advertisers have already been lined up for the service, including Cisco, Intel, General Motors and Cadbury-Schweppes.

The two companies are seeking to stave off YouTube's growing popularity with users who illegally upload clips of their favourite shows and movies, as well as their own home-made videos.

They have signed a partnership agreement with Google rivals AOL, Yahoo!, Microsoft and MySpace, to distribute videos to their collective audience.

Separately, in April this year, Sony launched a video-sharing rival to Google's YouTube in Japan called "eyeVio". The PlayStation3 maker plans to roll out the site to other markets after gauging its initial impact in its Japan.

Comments

Peter Petrelli - 30/08/2007

Whats Heroes?

Gordon Macmillan - 30/08/2007

Peter you mean you can't fly?

nick alers - 30/08/2007

please say you are joking?

Peter Petrelli - 30/08/2007

I tried my hand at irony. I cant wait for this 'Hulu' to launch. Theres nothing better than when the consumer actually comes out winning when big companies have a bitch fight!