• Cnet , Tuesday, November 4, 2008 11 AM

George Kliavkoff, the exec who is most responsible for NBC's participation in Hulu, the successfully growing joint online video venture with News Corp., is departing the network after little more than two years as NBC's chief digital officer. In a memo to staff, Kliavkoff said he had achieved the goals he set out for himself when he joined in August 2006, and will take time off before jumping into his next project.

The 41-year-old will leave NBC at the end of the year, although he will remain available to NBC CEO Jeff Zucker throughout the transition process. "George came to NBC Universal when we were nowhere in digital," Zucker said. "We asked him to help us change the fundamental orientation of a traditional media company from an analog to a digital mindset. George did that, and did an outstanding job for us. Today, our digital properties are thriving across the company, and are now embedded in each of our divisions."

Kliavkoff was Hulu's first CEO and helped establish the site's strategy. Within four months, the startup leapt into the top ten among video sites. Kliavkoff also oversaw the distribution of NBC's Olympics coverage, which delivered 1.3 billion page views and streamed 10 million hours of video to 52 million unique users, according to Cnet. In his memo, Kliavkoff referred to NBC's Olympics coverage as "the largest digital media event of all time." He added that digital revenues at NBC would exceed $1 billion in 2009.

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