Hulu said to seek pay-TV partnership

Hulu, having decided against selling itself to a pay-TV distributor earlier this year, is now in talks with cable operators and other TV providers about the possibility of partnering with them, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The idea behind the potential partnerships, according to the Journal, which cited "people familiar with the situation," is to have pay-TV distributors bundle Hulu Plus service with their video product and integrate Hulu's app on their set-top boxes.

That would let subscribers more easily watch full seasons of hit broadcast TV shows, which are often not available through pay-TV distributors' on-demand products.

Hulu is said to have had preliminary talks with cable operators including Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), Cox, Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T (NYSE: T).

The report is further evidence that online video providers are seeing pay-TV providers as a way to boost their distribution. Earlier this year, Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) was said to be in talks with U.S. cable operators about adding its app to the set-top boxes they lease to subscribers--a partnership it has pulled off a handful of times overseas with the help of TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO).

For more:
- the Wall Street Journal had this report (sub. req.)

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