TV.com loses Hulu content

Apparently, Hulu’s evil plot to gelatinize our brains no longer includes lending content to TV.com.

The Hulu website — a partnership between News Corp. and NBC that hosts movies and television shows — pulled its content from TV.com, which is owned by CBS, CNet confirmed today. Attempts to watch FOX and NBC programming on TV.com currently result in a "video unavailable" message.

"Hulu has contractual rights with regards to our relationship with TV.com and we are exercising those rights," Hulu said in a statement. "Out of respect for their confidentiality, we will not disclose our discussions." A CBS spokeswoman told CNet that the company had no comment.

The move came a day after new research showed Hulu lagging behind TV.com in viewership. Quoting Nielsen, Advertising Age said the site pulled in 5.9 million unique visitors since its relaunch last month, compared to 4.5 million unique visitors to Hulu. TV.com’s addition of full television episodes, along with community features, contributed to the increase.

The article says TV.com’s biggest challenge will be to secure more television content, because advertising rates are roughly five times better for commercials embedded into a show than display ads that merely appear on the site. No one is saying Hulu pulled the content from TV.com to cripple the service, but it does make sense from a business perspective, given what Ad Age is saying.

For consumers, it’s just an added hassle for watching TV online, but what can you expect? It’s not like all the television networks are going to join hands, pool their resources and give us everything in one convenient location. That just wouldn’t be evil enough.