News Corp./NBC U Joint Venture Inks Deals with Five Nets

Oxygen, Fuel, Speed, Sundance, TV Guide on Board

By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 5/30/2007 9:19:00 AM

News Corp.’s and NBC Universal’s “YouTube killer” online-video joint venture signed content-distribution deals with five cable networks: Oxygen, Fox Cable Networks’ Fuel TV and Speed Channel, Sundance Channel and Gemstar-TV Guide International’s TV Guide Channel.

The NBC U/News Corp. JV -- still unnamed -- is supposed to launch sometime this summer with “thousands of hours” of free, full-length TV programming and video clips.

The venture now has content deals with nearly 20 networks and TV and film studios, including CNET Networks and Comcast, which will contribute content from E! Entertainment Television, Style, G4, Versus and Golf Channel. Distribution partners include AOL, MSN, MySpace, Yahoo and Comcast.net.

Short-form content from Fuel and Speed will be distributed to the venture’s online network and will also be hosted on its destination site. Oxygen will contribute short-form content, initially including The Bad Girls Club, Fight Girls, 50 Funniest Women and Our Bodies, Myself. Sundance will provide full-length original series, short films and original short-form content shot exclusively for the Web, including all 13 episodes from original series Big Ideas for a Small Planet.

Content from TV Guide will be syndicated across all distribution partner sites. In addition, the venture's destination site will offer TV Guide's recommendations for the best shows, movies and music on TV, plus celebrity interviews and behind-the-scenes clips from popular TV shows.

The NBC U/News Corp. JV will have offices in Los Angeles and New York, the companies said. NBC U chief digital officer George Kliavkoff is the interim CEO of the JV. The companies added that permanent management and corporate branding will be announced “shortly.”

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