Granted, CBS was a little busy with earnings Wednesday but it took the company a day to come up with a comeback to Hulu’s assertion that it was within its “contractual rights ” to yank its programming from CBS Interactive’s revamped TV.com. The response: “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.”

SEE ALSO: CBS CEO Moonves Raves About TV.com; Hulu Who?

Maybe the two can do the next round in haiku.

Why is this even going on? One answer: Hulu the portal has become more important to the JV and the portal is missing an ingredient that just about everyone else has thanks to Quincy Smith’s push for ubiquity: CBS programming. Because of the distribution deal CNET signed with Hulu pre-launch, TV.com had access to the JV’s exclusive content as well as that of CBS (which had a CNET deal before even before it acquired the company). Others, including EchoStar’s Sling.com and Comcast’s Fancast, have access to Hulu and CBS (NYSE: CBS). But the JV is stuck with featuring links to CBS in its video search engine; it can’t show episodes from the high-rated line-up in its player.

Another answer that comes up repeatedly when I talk to various parties with an interest is ego. Whose ego varies depending on the conversation: the list includes CBS Interactives’ Smith ; CBS CEO Leslie Moonves; NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker (not over this so much but in terms of overall relations with Moonves). Smith and Moonves said no to an equity deal before the NBCU-News Corp (NYSE: NWS). JV was announced that would have added CBS programming to Hulu and have resisted various deals since, including, I hear, a more recent version that would have included a smaller amount of equity.

In the meantime, each is giving up an avenue of access to consumers—and the revenue, however small now, that goes with it.