Hulu is looking to launch in Germany, according to a report by German media news site Horizont.net. Hulu’s SVP Johannes Larcher and consultant Olaf Kroll are currently talking to German TV networks to strike content deals for a launch in the country, Horizont reported late last week.
Hulu started talking to potential partners in Europe years ago, but wasn’t actually able to follow through on any of its plans. Part of the problem was that TV networks preferred to launch their own catch-up platforms. However, these attempts haven’t always been successful: Regulators put a stop to plans by the two biggest commercial German TV entities RTL and Pro Sieben Sat 1 to launch their own catch-up site earlier this year, and the British Hulu lookalike Seesaw recently shut down when a proposed acquisition fell through.
Horizont is now reporting that Hulu has been struggling to acquire some of the rights necessary for a full-blown launch in Germany, which is why it wouldn’t launch “with the same offering” as in the U.S. The news site didn’t provide any further details, but it’s possible that Hulu would approach the German market with a subscription-only offering, just like it did when it expanded to Japan earlier this year.
We have asked Hulu for comment and will update this story once we hear back from the company.
Image courtesy of (CC-BY-SA) Flickr user gfhdickinson.
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