• Media Memo, Friday, May 13, 2011 11:31 AM

Hulu and its owners are reportedly close to a new deal that would keep programs from NBC, Fox and ABC on the site. "An agreement to extend the content licenses that owners News Corp., Disney and NBCUniversal [sic] signed two years ago should be in place within a week," reports MediaMemo, citing people familiar with the discussions.

"It looks like Hulu will remain a strong force in the streaming content wars," WebProNews writes. That said, "Though the terms of the new deal may not affect the normal viewer, they make shake up things for the companies involved." "The biggest possible change is that the network owners don't want to syndicate their content to just Hulu and their own sites, but also have the option to syndicate it to other online outlets," Business Insider points out. Also, "There might be some changes around what shows appear and when."

Regarding distribution windows, GigaOm suggests: "Some programmers might be wary of keeping that window in place, thinking that they could get more viewers to tune in live if they held off Hulu availability for a few more days or weeks." (Hulu previously struck a deal with Viacom, which delays the appearance of shows like "Jersey Shore" and "Tosh.0" several weeks after they've aired live.)

Hulu management -- led by CEO Jason Kilar -- along with officials from News Corp and Disney, are reportedly negotiating the new deal. "But NBCUniversal, one of the site's original owners, gave up its board seats and management role in the joint venture earlier this year as part of its Comcast merger agreements," MediaMemo notes. "It will have to accept whatever terms its partners arrange."

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