Viacom Pulls Comedy Shows From Hulu

By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 3/8/2010 9:49:00 AM

For media companies, free-to-consumer, ad-supported Internet video just isn’t paying off .

No joke: Viacom will end the 21-month run of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report on Hulu, effective March 9, while full episodes from both shows will continue to be available on Viacom’s own sites.

Neither Comedy Central nor parent Viacom provided an explanation for why the shows were coming off Hulu, which is a joint venture of News Corp., The Walt Disney Co. and NBC Universal. According to several reports, Viacom and Hulu were simply unable to agree on the terms of their revenue split.

Meanwhile, executives at Hulu and its parent companies have repeatedly discussed the likelihood that the Web site — the Internet’s most popular destination for professionally produced TV — will institute a subscription model at some point for some content.

In a statement, Comedy Central said: “Hulu was one of the many digital distribution partners we’ve worked with over the past few years to add new outlets for our valuable and powerful content and to help drive the businesses of our partners. We had a great experience with Hulu, and we hope to work with its team again in the future.”

Full episodes will continue to be available at The DailyShow.com and ColbertNation.com.

Comedy Central had made The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report available through Hulu since June 2008.

Andy Forssell, Hulu’s senior vice president of content and distribution, said in a blog post that Hulu “is continuing to talk to the Comedy Central folks about a number of opportunities. They’re a great team and I’m confident that we’ll be working with them in multiple ways in the future.”

The development “was yet another reminder that the evolution of Web TV will not follow a linear path,” wrote Sanford Bernstein analysts Michael Nathanson and Craig Moff ett in a research note Wednesday.

The Bernstein analysts noted that six companies — Disney, Time Warner Inc., News Corp., Viacom, CBS and NBC Universal — control more than 80% of TV viewing hours in the U.S., as measured by Nielsen. “Until they find a model that is economically viable, the development of online video will be halting at best,” Nathanson and Moffett wrote.