EMI Becomes First Major Music Company to Offer Music Videos, Concert Coverage on Hulu

Hulu, the free, ad-supported broadband video venture co-owned by The Walt Disney Company (ABC), NBC Universal and News Corp. (Fox), said Wednesday that it has signed a deal with EMI Music, under which the latter will be the first major music company to offer concerts and music videos on Hulu's broadband video platform.

The Hulu-EMI partnership--which the companies say will see Hulu offering content from artists on various EMI labels, including Virgin, Capitol and Blue Note--has kicked off with the launch of exclusive content from singer, Norah Jones, whose new album, "The Fall," debuts this week: the content, which is monetized through pre-roll ads, is located on a dedicated Norah Jones page on Hulu.com, and, according to the companies, will include multiple concerts in their entirety and all the singer's music videos. Hulu is also featuring an interview with Jones on its corporate blog. "We think Hulu is an excellent, high-quality environment and a great place to connect with fans," Ronn Werre, president of EMI Music Services and COO of EMI Music North America, said in a prepared statement. "We look forward to making more content available from other artists as well. We're delighted to add Hulu to the growing number of platforms EMI is working with to give fans more of what they're looking for." News of the Hulu-EMI partnership came on the same day that Vevo--a Hulu-like, YouTube-powered broadband TV service for music videos which is backed by Universal Music and Sony, and which last month received a significant investment from Abu Dhabi Media--announced that it would launch on December 8th.

In related news: STV, the Scottish licensee of UK commercial terrestrial broadcaster, the Independent Television Network (ITV), has initiated legal action against the latter, in an attempt to secure an injunction that would prevent ITV from signing a deal with Hulu or one of the other broadband VOD platforms looking to enter the UK market. "ITV has entered into UK-wide deals for which it does not hold the necessary rights," Bobby Hain, STV's director of broadcast services and regulatory affairs, told the UK newspaper, The Daily Telegraph (which says that sources are telling it that ITV is in "late-stage discussions" with Hulu about offering its content on the broadband VOD service). "In Scotland, STV holds these rights and it is entirely unacceptable that ITV is intruding into our license areas in this way." Another source, whom the Telegraph describes as being "close to STV," explained STV's concerns over ITV's deal-making thus: "The Internet has no borders. If ITV could ensure that no one from Scotland accessed the content on Hulu, it would not be a problem." More detail on the STV-ITV dispute is available here.