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Updated: Hulu in Limited Music Video Deal With EMI; How Long Before a Vevo Deal?

Updated below: Hulu is doing a limited deal music video deal with EMI, which could be interpreted as a sign of things to come: it is tying up with struggling EMI to feature all of Norah Jones’ music videos, concerts and related material on the site, reports NYT. Jones has a new album coming out this week, so that explains the promotional deal. It has done some concert music streaming before, including livestreaming a Dave Matthews Band concert in the summer; it has also featured some other music videos on the site, but this is the first official deal with a big 4 music label.

Meanwhile, Vevo, the music label JV music video site—co-owned by Vivendi’s Universal Music and Sony (NYSE: SNE) Music—that is also working with YouTube, is about ready to launch. Wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine Vevo, whose main inspiration was Hulu, doing some sort of limited deal with Hulu for distribution, or a marketing/ad deal as well. This also hints at it: Andy Forssell, Hulu’s SVP for content and distribution, told NYT that Hulu toyed with the idea of putting tens of thousands of music videos on the site, but decided to go the artist package route like with Jones. Or maybe, just maybe, it might become a competitor to Vevo; the two sites don’t have any shareholders in common. From Forsell: “my sense is that we’ll be in relationships with all of them at some point.”

Updated: EMI and Hulu have announced the deal, and the result is this. Norah Jones videos are the first, and others from EMI, including its labels Virgin, Capitol and Blue Note, will come later.

Nov 18, 2009 12:11 AM ET

Norah Jones Hulu

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Posted In: Entertainment, Music, hulu, vevo

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