CBS Corporation issued a statement today suggesting they plan to fight the loss of Hulu videos on TV.com. A statement issued today by CBS said “CBS Interactive is well within its rights to stream Hulu video content on TV.com under its agreement with Hulu. We are evaluating our next steps at this time.”
The dispute began last week when Hulu content was pulled from both TV.com and the Boxee media center. A vague explanation was given for the Boxee situation, but the only thing anyone at Hulu had to say about TV.com was that it had to do with “contractual obligations.”
In some ways Hulu is one of the most surprising services on the internet. In 2007, when NBC Universal and Fox parent News Corp announced they were working on an online video website it seemed unlikely they would come up with an offering as user friendly as Hulu. Up to that Hollywood’s track record was horrible.
From the time it launched Hulu has received unprecedented praise from nearly everyone. You could barely tell they were owned by huge media companies.
Result for: contractual obligations
It seems Dreamworks has gotten the OK from Toshiba to drop HD DVD because they have cancelled all upcoming HD DVD titles including the anticipated “Bee Movie” that was set for release in North America on March 11th.
Dreamwork’s parent company Paramount also announced that it would be ending HD DVD releases beginning on March 4th.
The studios differ however with their future plans. Paramount plans to release on Blu-ray right after they drop HD DVD while you wont be seeing any Dreamworks titles until at least the summer. There was no word on what each studio’s first release will be.
Earlier this week Dreamworks’ CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg made a statement saying that the studio was still committed to HD DVD thanks to contractual obligations. From his mouth, “We have a partnership with Toshiba and have an obligation to see this through,” he said. “It really is in [Toshiba's] court at this point to really declare what the next step will be.”
