Hulu reiterates international plans; ITV reiterates it won’t work with aggregators

US catch-up service Hulu has reiterated plans to launch in international territories.

CEO Jason Kilar relayed a video message to delegates at the RTS conference in London yesterday in which he said Hulu “should be a global service”. He added: “Where and when are things that we keep close the vest.”

The company, a joint venture between NBC, Fox and ABC, was expected to launch in the UK last year. However, Adam Crozier, the recently-installed CEO of ITV, said that the UK commercial broadcaster will not be teaming up with Hulu. When it was put to him that ITV almost became an equity partner in Hulu in return for providing its content he replied: “We almost became a lot of things.” He added: “I am not interested in working with aggregators…we need to keep control of our own content.”

Also speaking at the RTS event, Time Warner president and CEO Jeff Bewkes questioned the Hulu business model. “It’s a way for broadcasters to take content and put it online and on-demand. The question is what is the model? Currently it’s the same as for TV – advertising – but generating a fifth of the amount. The question long term is how will that model finance programme creation.”