Hulu in talks about expanding online TV from US to Australia

Online streaming TV portal Hulu has reportedly been talking with Australian broadcasters about an advertising-based portal there, in a move that could thwart the chances of the ABC's new iView technology being used instead.

After launching a pilot of Hulu in the US last year, the two founding members -- News Corp. and NBC Universal -- sold a 10 percent stake in the portal to Providence Equity Partners for $100 million.

Hulu.com CEO Jason Kilar and other Hulu execs flew to Australia for meetings slated to take place last Thursday and Friday with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, that country's public broadcaster, according to reports in Australia's Sydney Morning Herald.

Hulu spokespersons in the US today were temporarily unavailable for comment on Monday about the talks in Australia.

Hulu.com has already offered full episodes and segments from hundreds of different TV shows, some currently available only in the US. Some of the most popular programs have included Fox's Family Guy, The Simpsons, and American Dad; and NBC's Saturday Night Live and Battlestar Galactica (through SciFi). Its video is in Flash format for higher resolution and bandwidth than other Web-based video services, although results are reportedly less satisfactory, in general, than for standard-definition TV.

Meanwhile, at least one Australian reviewer has complained that, although the ABC's emerging iView streaming video provides a fair range of content, resolution might be a lot better, and downloadable video would be also be a good idea, given current connectivity options in parts of Australia.

As previously reported in BetaNews, although survey results have varied as to the amount of online TV viewing taking place in various places in the world, a study released by Integrated Media Measurement (IMMI) last week showed that up to about 20% of all TV viewing in the US now happens over the Internet.