Viacom Gives In; To Offer Comedy Central Shows on Hulu
By Rafat Ali - Mon 09 Jun 2008 10:06 PM PST
After lots of posturing over the last year, Viacom (NYSE: VIA) has given in and will start syndicating two Comedy Central shows through NBCU-FOX JV video service Hulu. It will begin offering full episodes of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and the “Colbert Report” on Hulu.com starting Tuesday, as part of a test, reports Reuters. If this test is successful, the company says, they will add more Viacom shows to the service. Comedy Central will receive a percentage of ad sales sold by Hulu.
The two shows are also available in full length on ComedyCentral.com and on Comcast’s (NSDQ: CMCSA) Fancast...previously the shows only offered clips on the network site, though the two shows recently launched their standalone sites with most of the archives in clip form. Later this month, Hulu will add select programs from PBS as well, including Nova, Carrier, Scientific American Frontiers, Wired Science, and others down the line.
This should be an early validation for Hulu, which recently broke out above TV network’s own video sites, in terms of traffic...according to April Nielsen numbers, Hulu’s video streams have grown to more than 63 million, as viewers are watching more than two hours of Hulu content per month.
Posted in: Companies, NBC Universal, News Corp., Viacom
Tags: comedy central, hulu,
