Online video streaming service Hulu—a joint venture between Fox and NBC—has pulled its content from both TV.com and Boxee, citing contractual restrictions imposed by content providers. Boxee is a freeware cross-platform media center application with integrated social networking features; Boxee had included access to Hulu content along with several other Internet media services, including YouTube, MySpace TV, Flickr, and others. TV.com is a online streaming video service run by CBS.
In a post to its blog, Hulu cited contractual pressure from its content partners to withdraw content from Boxee. Boxee says it hopes to work with Hulu to get Hulu content restored to its service.
Hulu has not disclosed the nature of the contractual limits that have led it to withdraw content from partner sites and services. Hulu has content distribution agreements with the likes of Comcast, AOL, Yahoo, and MySpace to redistribute content; however, it’s possible Hulu’s content providers looked at those solutions only as a way to help Hulu establish itself and gain momentum: now that the service has arguably been discovered by a significant portion of its potential online audience, the content providers may view those distribution agreements as eyeballs being taken away from its own service…and, of course, it own advertisers.
According to recent figures from Nieslen VideoCensus, Hulu is currently the third ranked video streaming site on the Internet, behind only Yahoo and YouTube. Hulu also ran its first television advertisement during the Super Bowl.
