LOS ANGELES – Online video service Hulu, which has a deal with Canadian specialty TV channel Movieola, on Wednesday publicly launched its new website at www.hulu.com. People can go to the website to watch free a large selection of hit TV shows, movies and clips.
Hulu also announced new content partnerships with the Warner Bros. Television Group, Lionsgate, NBA, NHL and more than 20 other top content providers.
The website has videos from more than 50 top broadcast networks, cable networks, movie studios and web-centric content providers. It streams videos and offers additional tools to enhance the viewing experience, including full-screen view, a pop-out window, a “lower lights” feature and much more.
“Today, Hulu is crossing a milestone in its mission to help people find and enjoy the world’s premium content, when, where and how they want it,” said Hulu CEO Jason Kilar. “With full-length episodes of current and archived television shows, feature films, sports and news, we believe the Hulu service is a step forward in giving consumers entertainment on their terms.”
Hulu.com offers features that enable users to easily clip, share and embed videos on other websites, including blogs and social networking sites. Additionally, Hulu.com’s search feature also helps users to find legal, premium video online even if it is not directly available on Hulu.com.
Hulu.com has been in test mode since October 2007. Over 5 million viewers have watched videos in the past 30 days via Hulu.com or its extensive distribution network, which includes its partner sites of AOL, Comcast’s Fancast.com, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo! and other websites where users have embedded Hulu videos.
More than 50,000 Hulu video players were embedded on nearly 6,000 sites across the Web during the test period. Additionally, Hulu has more than quadrupled the number of show and movie titles in its library since private beta testing began.
Hulu solicits advertising dollars, offering advertisers the chance to connect their brands with the online content, to interact with highly engaged consumers and to extend their reach via Hulu’s broad distribution network.
Hulu was founded in March 2007 by NBC Universal and News Corp and is operated independently from offices in Los Angeles, New York, and Beijing. Hulu closed a $100 million investment from private equity firm Providence Equity Partners in October 2007.
