The good news for Hulu, the video portal jointly created by NBC Universal and News Corp., is that it sold out of advertising inventory.
The bad news for Hulu viewers is that more ads are on the way.
Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Universal, made the statements during a gathering of the International Advertising Association on Monday, according to Adage.com, the Web site of magazine Advertising Age.
Over at Silicon Alley Insider, Michael Learmonth points out that Hulu, the site that has received favorable reviews for offering users the ability to watch full-length TV shows, didn’t have that much inventory to sell.
Managers wanted to limit advertising so as not to turn off visitors while the month-old site was still in its infancy. In another example of how Hulu tiptoed around advertising, the site even offered users a choice of how they watched ads.
It’s obvious that Zucker and Hulu execs are confident enough in the site’s traffic to boost the number of ads. And as Zucker boasted about Hulu, he couldn’t resist taking a poke at YouTube.
“Advertisers want to be on something where you know what you get and not on something where you could be advertising (next to a video of) a cat on a skateboard,” Zucker said, according to Adage.com.
The Web site also reported that Zucker said efforts continue to try to convince Disney, Viacom, and CBS to join Hulu.
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