NBC - BRITISH TV EXEC SAYS U.K. NETWORKS SHOULD EMULATE HULU

BRITISH TV EXEC SAYS U.K. NETWORKS SHOULD EMULATE HULU

Dawn Airey, the head of Britain's Channel 5, has urged fellow broadcast executives in the U.K. to build online partnerships and "then return to stabbing each other in the back over the broadcast schedules." She cited the success of Hulu in the U.S., which she said, resulted "because three ferociously competitive global media players - Fox, NBC Universal and now Disney-ABC - are grown up enough to know that there is a time to compete and fight likes rats in a sack for audience share and there is a time to put aside your differences and form partnerships that are mutually beneficial." She lambasted the U.K. government for rejected her proposals for a quasi merger with the troubled network Channel 4 on the grounds that it would not pay off in the long term. "Unless we come up with a sustainable business model for commercial broadcasting in the short- to medium-term, then the longer-term isn't going to matter," she said.

01/07/2009