CBS still might join Hulu
CBS chief Les Moonves explained this morning at the Media Summit why he’s not joining Hulu – for now.
‘We did have an opportunity to go with Hulu,’ Moonves said. ‘We think it’s a terrific idea. We think we can accomplish the same thing by ourselves at better economic terms for us.’
CBS syndicates its content through their Interactive Audience Network. ‘We have something over 200 websites,’ Moonves said, ‘from the big guys like AOL and Microsoft to little guys like Bebo and places like that. Many millions of people are using it and now we’ve got to monetize it.
‘You’re gonna see Hulu doing similar things, but we like the fact that we’re in control of our own content, where it goes, and we’re selling the advertising for these 200 sites.’
Moonves is keeping all options open. ‘We still might join Hulu and put our content through Hulu. They have some terrific things they’re doing.’
For Your Imagination CEO Paul Kontonis, who also attended the Media Summit, shares Moonves’ reservation about Hulu. ‘The key to web video is a wide distribution strategy that is agnostic to the website and the video,’ Kontonis says.
