NBCU-NWS JV Hulu Launches With Private Beta Portal, Open Distribution; Sony, MGM Deals

After more than a year of speculation and months of promises, the ambitious gamble by NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) and News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) that they can create a major video service launches overnight on a variety of fronts. Dubbed Hulu, the video JV goes live with current and archived TV shows, clips and a cluster of feature films in a mix of private and public forms: small-scale private-beta destination portal hulu.com; distribution service Hulu on major portals, and shared/embedded video. CEO Jason Kilar explained during an interview/demo: “You’ve got a lot of passionate people … It’s not just about hulu.com, it’s about the web, letting this content go out to the neighborhoods people frequent. We don