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Hulu Tops TV Network Sites

  • Reuters, Wednesday, May 21, 2008 11:32 AM
Hulu.com, the Web video venture from News Corp. and NBC Universal, is reporting surprisingly good usage numbers. On Tuesday, CEO Jason Kilar announced that its service would be distributed on seven new sites, in addition to reporting that usage of Hulu.com surpassed that of other television network Web sites, including those owned by News Corp. and NBC, its founders. Its new distribution partners are TV.com, TVGuide.com, BuddTV.com, Flixster.com, MyYearbook.com, Break.com and Zap2it.com.

"While it is extremely early in terms of Hulu's history of serving users, we're quite excited to see such positive trends in Hulu's growth and viewership," Kilar said. Users watched 63.2 million videos on Hulu.com and its distribution sites in April, according to data from Nielsen, watching 129.3 minutes per month. Hulu's nearest rival was Walt Disney Co.'s ABC.com, which drew 60.8 million video views, and an average time spent of 57.3 minutes.

However, one wonders whether this is much of surprise given Hulu's distribution on sites like Yahoo, AOL, MSN and MySpace. ABC.com can't even hold a candle to the kind of traffic those sites generate, so one would hope that Hulu easily surpasses the Disney site in terms of usage. That said, Hulu's modest success shows that distribution is the key to success; the likes of ABC and CBS ought to jump on board.

Read the whole story at Reuters »

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