Hulu keeps trucking along with Plan A, even though its corporate parents and the rest of the market have developed a case of the meanies. As long expected, the site is making a play into music, today announcing a limited distribution deal with EMI and the launch of a Norah Jones music video section.

The market for music is not as wide-open as was Hulu’s opportunity with TV shows a couple years ago. Universal Music Group and Sony Music are working with YouTube on the launch of a new destination site called Vevo, which has been called from the outset a “Hulu for music videos.” Warner Music also just made up with YouTube, allowing for its content to return to the site itself.

The Norah Jones deal includes a library of the artist’s music videos, concert footage and interviews accessible to Hulu’s U.S. users. and accompanied by lovely 30-second pre-roll ads (grr). EMI said artists from its Virgin, Capitol and Blue Note labels will follow Jones onto Hulu.

Hulu’s Andy Forssell, senior vice president for content and distribution, told the New York Times that Hulu has revised its idea of a massive music video library to building “an immersive experience around certain artists.” While a more limited approach is going to seem odd to users, it might be financially prudent; the music labels have been able to extract an arm and a leg for their content from many web startups, and Hulu doesn’t want to give up any more of its limbs.

Nov. 11 is not a good date for Current TV employees. For the second year in a row, the network/web site hybrid Al Gore built has announced layoffs on that day in the double digits. But while last year, the eliminated jobs were attributed to “a new cross-platform programming strategy,” the bulk of today’s 80 lost jobs are directly tied to the cancellation of Current Tonight, Current Takeover and Current Exposed.

The canceled shows were part of a change in strategy for Current following the hiring of new CEO Mark Rosenthal, according to COO Joanna Drake Earl. “We had a chance to step back to see what’s working and what’s not,” she said via phone, “which led to the decision to move away from an over-reliance on short-form content.”

The layoffs will allow the company to reinvest in programming, marketing and affiliate sales hiring, areas where Earl admitted Current is looking for “more experienced leadership,” as well as invest more in longer-form shows like Infomania and The Rotten Tomatoes Show, both of which she described as successes.

When it comes to finding ways to make the web and TV play nice together, Current has always been an innovator, whether being one of the first to incorporate Twitter updates on news broadcasts or what Earl described as Rotten Tomatoes‘ “low-bar audience participation format.” We’ll just have to see if the next reorganization comes on Nov. 11, 2010.

Comcast’s bid to buy NBC Universal from GE has cleared another hurdle — the price point. The two parties have agreed to a $30 billion price tag for the TV and movie company, sources familiar with the matter tell The Wall Street Journal and Reuters.

The deal would give the cable network a 51 percent stake in the newly combined venture. And the deal could include a stipulation that over the following seven years, GE would sell all or part of its remaining stake in the company to Comcast.

One variable to closing this deal is French media company Vivendi, which has a 20 percent stake in NBCU. Vivendi has been talking about selling its stake for a while, but it’s not clear whether the company has agreed to the deal being negotiated between Comcast and GE.

Comcast is expected to contribute between $4 billion and $6 billion to the venture, but the cash payment would depend on how well NBC performs financially. If NBCU’s financials get worse between the signing of the deal and final closing, Comcast could wind up paying less.

The Journal reports that the final details are being worked out, and we could get an announcement by the end of this week. (We’ve heard that one before.) Getting the regulatory approvals is expected to take eight to 12 months.

DirecTV Added 136,000 Subs in Q3; revenue was up 9.7 percent to $5.5 billion. (Multichannel News)

Target Rolls Out Web Vids for Holiday Shopping; comedic clips cover such topics as family traditions and other oddities. (AdWeek)

Boxee to Unveil Beta on Dec. 7; new version will have a new UI, better navigation and more. (Boxee Blog)

Live Music to Debut on Mobile and Theaters at the Same Time; crowd-sourced movie will play on 500 screens in front of the animated movie Planet 51. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Fred Movie Looking for a Dad; production is looking for “cameo names only” to play the pipsqueak’s pop. (Tubefilter)

Coinstar, the parent company of DVD-vending company Redbox, reported third-quarter earnings yesterday, with the unit’s revenues up 90 percent to $198.1 million. The company also added 2,700 kiosks during the quarter, bringing its total DVD kiosk count to 20,600 nationwide.

Revenue growth for Coinstar’s latest quarter actually slowed from previous quarters this year, as the LA Times points out. The company’s revenue grew 110 percent in the second quarter and 155 percent in the first quarter.

But, growth is growth, especially when it comes at a time when DVD and Blu-ray sales have dropped and home entertainment revenues are depressed.

Redbox’s growth probably won’t ease the heat the company is feeling from some Hollywood studios, which are none too happy about the kiosks’ cheapo dollar-a-night movie rentals. But not everyone is against Redbox; the company recently signed distribution deals with Summit Entertainment and NCircle Entertainment.

Redbox has also started experimenting with higher rental prices in select markets, in a move that could be an olive branch to grumbling studios, or a way to maintain revenue growth.

And just a reminder that we’ll be chatting with Redbox SVP of Marketing and Customer Experience Gary Cohen at next week’s NewTeeVee Live conference. If you act quick, there’s a $50 discount going on tickets until 5 p.m. PT today.

Blake Krikorian, who left left Sling Media earlier this year, the place-shifting startup that he sold to Echostar for $380 million in September 2007, is going to join the board of directors of Clicker.com, a Los Angeles-based online-video content discovery company started by Jim Lanzone, the former CEO of Ask.com. Krikorian is also going to make an undisclosed amount of money in the company; a news announcement is likely to be made later this week.

Clicker is backed by veteran venture capitalists Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital and Geoff Yang of Redpoint Ventures, who have invested $8 million in the company. Clicker is going to be unveiling its service to the world at our NewTeeVee Live conference, which will be held on Nov. 12 in San Francisco. (To buy tickets for the conference, click here. ) Liz covered the company in The Best Guides to Watching TV Online. Continue reading at GigaOM.

Comcast/NBCU Announcement This Week? Two sides have reportedly reached a tentative deal wherein the cable company would own 51 percent of NBC Universal. (The New York Times)

uTorrent 2.0 to Be a Network Friendly BitTorrent Protocol; will eliminate the need for ISPs to throttle BitTorrent traffic because the protocol will be network-aware and will throttle itself. (TorrentFreak)

FOX to Do On-Air Scavenger Hunt for The Simpsons; during the week of Nov. 9 – 13, viewers can watch for Simpsons shout-outs, tributes and clues, and enter to win a prize package. (TV by the Numbers)

TV Networks Tuning In to Google Video Box Ads; the ad, which brings up video when clicked on, being used by The CW, ABC, and USA. (MediaWeek)

FiOS TV Growth Slowing Down; telco added 191,000 video subscribers, and is now at 2.7 million overall. (Multichannel News)

Can Twitter and Social Marketing Save the Movies? Revision3 CEO says his company was able to help Paranormal Activity become a hit by using social media in conjunction with Rev3’s shows and talent. (Jim Louderback)

What’s next for YouTube? Branded entertainment, or when a sponsor pays creators to make something that will bring its brand to their audience.

YouTube is extremely bullish on branded entertainment, Kevin Yen, director of strategic partnerships for the site, said on a panel I moderated a few days ago. Expect a lot of branded projects to hit YouTube “in the coming quarters and months,” Yen said. But he added that the site is still evaluating the questions, “How do you scale it?” and “Can it be a $100 or $200 million a year business?”

Branded entertainment isn’t simple like Google AdWords; it would be hard to set up a product that automated these deals. YouTube is undergoing an “adjustment period” in which it learns how to moderate the various creative and controlling forces involved in commissioning sponsored videos from its users, Yen said. For instance, it connected Carl’s Jr. with nine YouTube stars earlier this year and coordinated their simultaneous launch of videos sponsored by the fast food chain to their 3.8 million combined subscribers (see the one from Nigahiga embedded above).

I asked Yen what about the overexposure of these YouTube stars for so many random brand experiments. It seems that the same group of 20 or so people that showed up in Weezer’s Pork and Beans video are pulled for just about every sponsored content initiative. Yen replied that UGC stars know the value of the audience they’ve built, and are highly sensitive to the concept of selling out. He contended that the core group of stars gets a ton of offers and they are very selective.

But what about deals that YouTube talent strike on their own to include brands and products in their videos? In addition to all those inbound offers, a number of services outside the purview of YouTube connect online video makers with brands, such as Hitviews, Zadby, Tadcast and Poptent.

Here’s where Yen’s comments might make some creators uneasy. He said the site relies on users’ “good behavior” to check a box that states they’ve included a brand in their video. At the moment, YouTube isn’t doing much with that information, as it wants to “foster the ecosystem,” said Yen. “But we want to track and find out what’s happening, in case we want to figure out a model later.” For background, YouTube earlier this year had gone so far as to notify some users that independent brand-integration deals in their videos could violate YouTube’s terms of service. And to be fair, YouTube is well within its rights to try to take a cut of profits other people make on its site.

We asked YouTube for further clarification of Yen’s remarks on sponsorship disclosures, and a spokesperson said that the site is “in the process of reviewing what makes the most sense in these situations.”

CBS Interactive CEO Quincy Smith is leaving his job, a move that wasn’t altogether unexpected. But the departure is clearly on good terms; CBS announced the news today with a press release headlined “QUINCY SMITH SIGNS MULTI-YEAR ADVISORY AGREEMENT WITH CBS CORPORATION” after Kara Swisher had the scoop.

Smith is to stay in his current role until the end of the year, at which point he will move onto “an independent advisory business” that will advise CBS on digital. He will continue to be involved in CBS Interactive’s monetization, authentication, partnerships and other “growth opportunities” — so just about everything, unless of course his other clients want some of his time! CBS Interactive President Neil Ashe will be staying on to lead the division.

Smith had been with CBS Interactive since Nov. 2006, and has made some big digital bets, such as the acquisition of CNET; March Madness On Demand and other live sports streams; and the wide online syndication of CBS shows. In a statement, CBS President and CEO Leslie Moonves called him “one of the finest minds working in Interactive media today.” Smith also has extensive experience in investing with Allen & Company and The Barksdale Group, but it would be a tough time to raise a fund right now.

Want to hear what’s next for Smith? Come to our NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco in a few short weeks. Smith will be joining us on stage for what’s sure to be a fantastic fireside chat with GigaOM founder Om Malik.

Juniper Makes Strategic Investment in Ankeena; company also gives Ankeena access to its JUNOS Software and development platform to help MSOs, telcos and ISPs manage new media infrastructure. (emailed release)

Eye-Fi Shares Videos Directly to Facebook; wireless memory card for digital cameras can now wirelessly upload videos to the social network. (emailed release)

5min Partners with HealthCentral; the two will create a new online video health network. (emailed release)

Voddler Launches a Hulu-like Service in Sweden; offered through ISP Bredbandsbolaget, it will stream U.S. movies from Paramount, Disney and others. (Variety)

Hulu No. 2 on MediaWeek’s Digital Hot List; premium content site the only video site on the list. (GigaOM)

Televisa Takes Soccer Into 3D; Spanish language network broadcasts the game into four theaters in Mexico for 89 pesos ($6.70) a ticket. (Variety)

Video ad network ScanScout today said it had (finally) closed its Series B round by bringing in funding from Singapore-based EDB Investments. We’d previously written about the round in March, when the company had raised $5.1 million of a planned $8.1 million round, according to a regulatory filing. Alongside the added investment from EDBI, ScanScout is setting up its first Asian office in Singapore.

comScore had ScanScout as the top U.S. video ad network in July, though it has since dropped to No. 3. The Boston-based company serves both pre-roll and overlay advertising to a potential reach of 57.6 million U.S. Internet users. It recently introduced a new ad format it’s calling the “Super Pre-Roll” that includes interactive overlays placed in various positions within a pre-roll ad. ScanScout publishers include RealNetworks, Fox News and Broadway.tv.

A media IPO — in this market?? That’s the idea both Vivendi and GE, co-owners of NBC Universal, are floating publicly. In remarks made in London today, Vivendi CEO Jean-Bernard Levy reportedly said of an IPO for NBCU “Why not?” and “Maybe that’s what will happen.” Sure, his wording was casual and non-committal, but he did get as specific as saying that an IPO, if it did occur, would probably be in New York.

Here’s the actual quote:

“It’s part of the thinking we had back in 2003 when we created NBCU. One way for Vivendi to exit would be through a flotation on the stock market and maybe that’s what will happen.”

While Levy’s vague comments have been broadly picked up already, it’s worth noting their proximity to something similar said by GE CEO Jeff Immelt at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco last week. Immelt’s GE owns 80 percent of NBCU, while Vivendi owns 20 percent. Asked about a widely discussed potential deal to sell a majority stake to Comcast, Immelt replied, instead, about an IPO: “We’ve done all our planning to see whether or not an IPO would make sense,” he said (see video from the session embedded below; the stuff about NBC comes after minute seven). “That would be fine.”

ZillionTV Adds Lionsgate Content Partnernership; startup OTT video service to get shows like Mad Men and Weeds, as well as movies like Rambo. (emailed release)

Watercooler Gets $5.5 Million; Series B led by Betfair to fund further development of fantasy and social games on Facebook and other platforms. (emailed release)

Bambuser Enables Live Streaming to Facebook; live mobile feeds can now be viewed in your news feed. (emailed release)

Hitatchi TV Uses Face Recognition to Power Down; the set recognizes when you look away and goes black. (Engadget)

Clearleap Shows Off Its Marketplace; company opens up about how operators can get web video from online to on TV. (paidContent)

People’s Choice Awards Partners with Visible Measures; the awards will begin incorporating Internet video viewing data into the nominee selection process. (release)

Vuguru, the digital studio run by Michael Eisner’s The Tornante Co., will become a standalone entity with investment and a distribution agreement with Canada’s Rogers Media, the broadcasting and publishing arm of Rogers Communications.

The deal is significant for Vuguru, which was out front of the original premium online video movement but simply hasn’t made very much content. With the new investment, the company plans to eventually make 30 web series per year (next year, a more modest 10 to 15). Rogers will have exclusive Canadian rights to the projects (which, no offense to the big online video watchers in Canada, is only a sliver of the total potential market for any content).

The deal keeps Eisner on as chairman of Vuguru, which he’d started in 2006 (see our initial story). So far, the company has made Prom Queen with Big Fantastic, which saw some 15 million views in its first run but only made “a couple thousand dollars,” though it later was sold internationally and as a DVD. Then Vuguru made The All-For-Nots, Foreign Body, and Back on Topps — of which the latter was the biggest success. Topps was sold to Comedy Central, which is developing it as a TV pilot.

The company is now (finally) launching another season of Prom Queen, which it’s now calling a “hit franchise” — not too big of a stretch in this day and age of web content, but interesting since Eisner had previously said publicly there wasn’t much money in it. Other series include (from the press release) “The Booth at the End, a new psychological thriller created by Internet-savvy writer Christopher Kubasik and helmed by veteran television director Jessica Landaw; and Pretty Tough, an adaptation of a successful young adult novel from accomplished television writer and producer Liz Tigelaar.”

Having built-in paid distribution is a good way to make money from original web content, though the size of the Rogers investment has not yet been disclosed. Vuguru also said it would “work with brand sponsors and distribution platforms to meet their programming goals.”

Court Orders Pirate Bay to Delete Torrents; site operators are found responsible, but don’t have to block access to Dutch users. (TorrentFreak)

The Sales-Only Window Is Real; studio sources confirm Netflix CEO’s assertion that the industry will block more than just Redbox discount rentals — though delays may actually be traded for better deals. (LA Times)

Why TV Is Good for the World; interesting read on the global effects of television, past, present and future. (Foreign Policy)

yfrog Adds Webcam Uploads; now users can post videos and photos to Twitter using the yfrog, web site, iPhone, email, and many desktop and mobile Twitter apps. (emailed release)

Which Came First, the Rights or the Monetization? Supercomm panelists say multiple aspects of a successful online video business are still missing. (Contentinople)

Netflix announced its 2009 third quarter results today, and gave a whopper of an earnings call with our first official stats on how many people are streaming Netflix, thoughts on the company’s kiosk and cable competition, a mystery new CE partner, and its first international moves.

But first here are the numbers: Netflix ended the third quarter with 11.1 million subscribers (up 28 percent year-over-year, and up 5 percent from the end of the second quarter). Revenue for the third quarter was $423 million (up 24 percent year-over-year, and up 4 percent from the second quarter).

While expectations were even higher — the stock dipped 2 percent in after hours trading — perhaps the market has gotten too used to Netflix blowing out earnings. Meanwhile, CEO Reed Hastings doled out some sweet info nuggets that make it look like we’ll be busy writing about Netflix in the fourth quarter. Here’s the breakdown:

Streaming Stats: Hastings said 42 percent of Netflix subscribers streamed at least 15 minutes of one TV episode or movie during the third quarter. This is up from 22 percent (of a smaller base) who streamed as much during the same period last year.

Kiosk Competition: While he didn’t come out and say it directly, Hastings seemed to be taking Hollywood’s side in the studios v. Redbox battle that is brewing. Hastings said that if the studios chose to create a “sales only” window with no rentals and a low-enough price for delayed rentals, the situation could be “a win for everyone,” especially since most Netflix rentals are library titles, not new releases.

Cable competition: Hastings conceded that his company’s over-the-top streaming could be seen as a threat to the cable companies’ video business, but said it’s a killer app for driving cable’s broadband business that could boost cable’s overall profits. Hastings said he envisions Netflix doing co-promotional deals with cable providers. Hastings also didn’t think that the streaming service would not be competitive with the cable cos TV Everywhere initiatives.

Big mystery CE Device: Particularly enticing was the news dropped during the call that Netflix would be partnering with another CE device later this year with a “material installed base,” big enough that the company revised its fourth quarter guidance upwards. Earlier in the call, Hastings mentioned that more CE companies want to include Netflix service and he specifically said “game consoles.” Could this mean that Netflix’s exclusivity with the Xbox will end and the service will pop up on Sony PlayStation 3 or the Nintendo Wii?

International: Netflix will be expanding internationally starting in 2010. International efforts will be streaming only and will start off small. You heard that right — no DVDs. Hastings commented on the complexities of postal systems abroad, so the international move would be Netflix’s first streaming only plan.

Looks like we’ll have plenty of topics to touch on during Reed Hastings fireside chat with Om at our upcoming NewTeeVee Live conference on Nov. 12. You won’t want to miss it, get your tickets today!