After months of negotiations, Disney (ABC) has agreed to take a stake in Hulu, NBC’s online video website and thus also air their shows on hulu.com. Fans of Lost Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, and so on can now see full episodes online legally for free with an ad or two thrown in for revenue.
While Greg Sandoval at CNET seems to think this will hurt YouTube, I don’t think that’s about to happen just yet. Sure, this is an important deal as YouTube tries to reform its model to include more industry-approved content, but YouTube is a household name with over 10 times the traffic currently.
