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Disney-Hulu Deal Is Ominous For YouTube

Hugh Pickens writes "Dow Jones reports that Hulu scored a big victory when Disney agreed to take a nearly 30% stake in Hulu and put full episodes of its ABC TV shows on the site, enabling users to see shows like Lost, Scrubs, Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives for free. Disney views the move as a way to reach a new audience that isn't coming to the network's own website. Although the ABC.com website has attracted regular viewers of its shows, Hulu offers the opportunity to tap into a new group of viewers. Now Google is under mounting pressure to add more professional content to YouTube in order to attract more advertisers. According to Dow Jones' Scott Morrisson, the equity structure of the Disney-Hulu deal suggests that content creators want greater involvement in online distribution than Google has offered with YouTube. 'Content providers don't want to give (YouTube) content because the advertisers aren't there yet,' said Edward Jones analyst Andy Miedler."

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  1. Re:Available outside U.S. ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Wish we could be Americans? LOL. You're delusional. The USA is one of the last places on earth I'd want to live.

    It used to be the "American Dream" thing, and back then we all wish we did live there. But now? When you elect people like Bush -- twice, get in wars like Iraq, have such a poor yet ridiculously expensive health care system, religious wing-nuts and bible-thumping rednecks, being spied on by your own government (e.g. abusive phone taps), where laws are being passed against the public at large (e.g. patriot act), where you can be sent to Guantanamo bay without a trial nor a lawyer, where the corporations dictate government policy by lobbying, where the RIAA and others can sue you for millions for sharing a 99 cent mp3, where the job market seemingly sucks and gets flooded with cheaper labor via H1Bs and so on.

    Any way we look at it, it sucks. Overpriced slow internet (bonus: now with caps too!), crappy mobile providers and plans, McDonalds-eating fatties everywhere, the shittiest beer I've ever tasted, corporations screwing you at large (not just Enron) and then you get to bail them out too! The list just doesn't seem to end.

    Sorry, the USA isn't ANYWHERE NEAR the top of our lists anymore. Just so you know. You keep thinking we're just jealous, and we'll keep laughing at you.