Hulu adds Sony, MGM, launches test

Hulu, an online video service formed by two media conglomerates, will
begin a private test on Monday with two new partners in one of big
media's most ambitious attempts to court viewers wherever they spend
time.

The joint venture of General Electric's NBC Universal and Rupert
Murdoch's News Corp, which earlier had trouble persuading other big
content producers such as Viacom Inc and Walt Disney Co to join, now
adds shows from Sony Pictures Television and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Studios Inc., Hulu executives said.

The long-awaited free, advertising-supported service makes its debut
as consumer interest over watching video clips and television shows on
the Internet.

Despite Hulu's high powered backers, the service has drawn skepticism
among media and Internet executives, who have struck out on their own
by offering shows on its own sites and are either selling shows on
Apple's iTunes or offering it for free on other.

But these companies have yet to garner the hundreds of millions of
viewers on such services as Google Inc's top online video sharing
service YouTube.

"We are still in inning No. 2 in the whole game of online video,"
Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey said, employing a baseball
metaphor.

Ahead of Hulu's anticipated public launch early next year, NBC
Universal has stopped offering its shows for sales on iTunes and
pulled its channel off of YouTube.

On Monday, Hulu will offer about 90 TV shows from the four companies
and smaller partners ranging from current prime-time hits such as
"Heroes" and "The Simpsons" to vintage shows "Miami Vice" and "The
A-Team."

It will also make about 10 feature films available including "The
Breakfast Club" and "The Blues Brothers."

Shortly after the test begins, these shows will also be made available
on a handful of the biggest online distributors Time Warner Inc's AOL,
Comcast Corp, Microsoft's MSN and Yahoo.

"Given that they're late, I have to admit that they've actually
delivered more than I expected," said McQuivey.

McQuivey pointed to the site's ability to let users share and embed
entire shows or movies everywhere on the Web as surprising features to
be offered by a service controlled by media companies who have spent
its entire history directing where and when its shows can be accessed.

NOT YOUTUBE KILLER

Although framed in the press as big media's "YouTube-killer," Hulu
Chief Executive Jason Kilar, a former Amazon.com executive, said the
site aims to make it the premier destination for full length shows and
movies.

"We want to stand for a high quality approach to the content," Kilar
said in a phone interview on Friday, who drew a distinction from
YouTube's offering of video clips.

Viewers could easily mistake the site for another dot-com start-up:
one would be hard pressed to figure out who its corporate sponsors are
as Hulu's minimalist design is stripped of network logos and largely
consists of a white background with thumbnails of the shows adorning
the screen.

Videos are played in wide-screen format on the top of the screen, with
an options to dim the entire screen, view it full screen, or as a
separate smaller box separate from the site.

One distinguishing features created by a team that consists almost
entirely of executives from the Internet and technology industries,
addresses an issue that is unique to its service -- the ability to
find a spot within a show that a viewer wants to share.

The ability to share video or embed video clips of a funny or
interesting moment on a show have existed legally and not for years on
services like YouTube that restrict the uploading of videos to ten
minutes.

But access to full length shows presents a new problem -- finding the
right moment.

Viewers can adjust a slider at the bottom of the video window to clip
the exact spot within a show -- a particularly funny skit on "Saturday
Night Live" for instance -- to send or embed on another Web page.

Hulu also confirmed Providence Equity Partners has invested $100
million for an undisclosed stake in the company. Earlier, media
reports said the stake valued the company at $1 billion.