Fox and NBC launch odd website Hulu

General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal and News Corp's (NYSE: NWS) Fox have launched [subscription required] their video site Hulu. Fox will offer a number of its shows on the website and NBC will put up programming from its cable networks and some of its feature-length films.

All of this premium content will be wrapped into a video site, Hulu, and be offered through distribution partners including Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) MSN, Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) and MySpace. The issue of whether the content will be available on Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube is still open for negotiation.

The new venture appears to be a perfect example of large companies managing a problem to death. It is not clear why Fox and NBC could not have cut their own content distribution deals without having to band together. It is equally unclear why anyone would go to the Hulu site if the content can be seen at larger web properties

Perhaps some of the online media executives at the two networks wanted to make sure that it appeared they were making progress on getting their programming onto the web. It might be a good way to keep a job, at least for now.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.