CBS, the most-watched US broadcaster, is in discussions to bring some of its TV shows to the popular Web video destination Hulu, according to CBS CEO Les Moonves. It is the only major broadcaster whose content is not available on Hulu.
Moonves, talking to Reuters this week, said that CBS is looking into offering content via Hulu Plus, a paid subscription service launched in June at $9 per month. Hulu Plus has likely been in the works since NBC Universal, News Corp and Disney started agreeing on the venture’s direction, but it is currently in beta testing and not fully open to the public.
“Are we having discussions with the Hulu subscription service? Yes we are,” Moonves told Reuters.
CBS has some of the more popular shows on US TV, such as “CSI” and “Two and a Half Men.”
Since its launch in 2007, Hulu is one of the fastest- growing sites, with around 43.5 million viewers in May, according to comScore – though it is seeing a bit of confusion over numbers now that comScore has changed its data gathering and said in June that Hulu was closer to only 24 million viewers.
Moonves said CBS originally stayed away from Hulu at its launch because CBS wanted to maintain its flexibility and retain its content’s strength. The subscription service is what led to CBS to consider Hulu.
“Our goal is to get paid for our content in as many different ways as we can without hurting the mother ship. The key here is flexibility,” Moonves said.
Earlier in the week, CBS signed a 10-year programming deal with Comcast. Beyond its broadcast TV negotiations, the new deal included an array of on-demand and Web video features and broadcast rights. More CBS content is expected to show up on Comcast’s Xfinity Web service where the two companies will share some ad revenues.
It is unclear if CBS is looking into securing a stake in Hulu with its possible future inclusion of content. Currently, the other major US broadcasters have at very least their interests represented in the Hulu board room via NBC, Disney (ABC) and News Corp (Fox). The vast majority of existing programing on Hulu is available for free, usually a short time after first being broadcast on air.
Hulu Plus was perhaps the best way to entice CBS to join up, and it has also garnered attention and talks with partners like cable network owners, including Viacom and Time Warner.
Hulu Plus is hoping to convince users to pay a monthly fee for the convenience of watching their favorite TV shows whenever they want. The biggest boon to that idea was perhaps the announcement of apps and compatible devices.
Hulu Plus will cover Apple’s iPad and iPhone, Sony’s PS3 and Samsung TVs, as well as Windows and Mac PCs, all under one subscription, with the promise of other mobile and console support coming before the year’s end. If all of these devices give content access for under $10 per month, Hulu has a great chance of opening wallets around the US.