Disney getting ready for Hulu
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Wired blog author Betsy Schiffman report that Disney’s Kevin Mayer, executive vice president of corporate strategy and business development, signaled that he could be ready to join the Hulu club.
Speaking at the Intel CEO Summit in San Francisco, a three-day gathering of about 600 startup CEOs and investors, Mayer sang praise for Hulu, the so-called “YouTube killer” that offers legitimate video content from both NBC and Fox.
“I think Hulu’s a great site,” Mayer said during a panel discussion about the future of entertainment. “We’re not participating — now. We have ongoing discussions, though, and we may [participate one day].”
Later during the discussion, Amy Reinhard, senior vice president of strategic planning and business development at Paramount Pictures, lamented the challenges of working for a company that is suing Google. (Viacom, parent company of Paramount, has been involved in litigation with YouTube for “brazen” copyright infringement over the last couple years.)
“I think initially [digital executives] wanted to reach out to Google to arrange some sort of partnership,” Reinhard said. “[The lawsuit] makes it hard when you’re trying to market a movie. YouTube is such a viral marketing tool . . . [without it] you have to live within some restrictions.”
