Dailymotion, the video site many call the “French YouTube”, has inked a deal to distribute US TV site Hulu’s material – but only in America. The deal sees the NBCU/News Corp (NYSE: NWS) JV gain a simple user profile on Dailymotion, through which it’s syndicating videos from its 40,000-strong library – yes, including the full-length episodes of TV shows and movies. Vids will also be shown through Dailymotion’s human-programmed thematic channels like Funny, Music and Film & TV. Unfortunately for Dailymotion users back in Europe, content remains geo-blocked only to the US, where Hulu’s users already reside.
The move is interesting in light of earlier speculation Hulu would opt for a European tie-up with the now-aborted Kangaroo service. But this is now a far cry from Hulu’s latest strategy, which last month pulled syndicated videos from third-party services TV.com and Boxee. And it’s hard to see what, beyond discoverability, Hulu will get from the arrangement; the Hulu user experience is much slicker than Dailymotion’s. It’s more of a win for Dailymotion, which just swelled its library of professional videos in one fell swoop. Release.
Dailymotion is trying to position itself apart from UGC counterparts like YouTube by offering a greater degree of professionally produced material through curated channels. But YouTube is already going great guns with its broadcaster partner programme. Dailymotion, like Babelgum, has recently been courting the independent film circuit.