• Silicon Alley Insider, Monday, November 17, 2008 11:16 AM

eHulu, the joint online video venture from News Corp. and NBC, looks poised to match YouTube in U.S. advertising revenues next year, according to a new estimate. This is shocking, considering that YouTube has more than 10 times as many monthly visitors as Hulu (83 million vs. 6 million). Nevertheless, Screen Digest is forecasting that both Hulu and YouTube will earn $180 million in revenue in 2009. The research group estimates that YouTube will make $100 million in U.S. revenue this year, compared to Hulu's $70 million.

Silicon Alley Insider points out that Screen Digest is most likely talking about gross revenue. Hulu actually passes along about 70-80% of revenue through to its content providers, so Hulu's net revenue is probably closer to $14-$21 million. YouTube also shares some revenue with content providers, but a far smaller percentage.

Even so, the fact that an eight month old startup can book nearly as much revenue as a company that Google bought for $1.6 billion two years ago has to be troubling for the folks at Mountain View HQ. That may be, but Henry Blodget thinks the addition of search placement ads on YouTube will help boost YouTube's revenues next year and take advantage of the site's enormous traffic. As Blodget says, due to its size, "YouTube still has the ability to squash Hulu" if it ever gets serious about striking professional content deals that benefit both sides.

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