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Viacom Makes Hulu Deal; Snooki, Betty White More Elite Than Colbert

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Viacom, owner of MTV, Comedy Central and other valuable properties on the Monopoly board of cable TV, has finally cut a deal with Hulu to make its shows available on the online video service. But, for most of its shows, it’ll cost you. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report will now be online free the next morning—if using comedycentral.com was too onerous for you—but you’ll need to sign up for a paid Hulu Plus subscription to catch up on Jersey Shore, Hot in Cleveland and Tosh.0, among many others—21 days after the shows air.

I’ll leave it to you to infer what it says about the deal—or our society—that Manswers is considered premium content. Or is it that The Daily Show and Colbert are now considered a public service? Excerpts from the announcement after the jump:

LOS ANGELES and NEW YORK – February 2, 2011 – Hulu and Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA and VIA.B) today announced a new content partnership that will return “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report” to Hulu.com and bring many popular TV shows from Viacom’s media networks, including Comedy Central, MTV, BET, VH1, Spike TV, and TV Land to the Hulu Plus subscription service.

Under the agreement, current full episodes and clips of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report will be available on the free ad-supported Hulu.com service and through the Hulu Plus subscription service beginning February 2, 2011. In addition, Viacom will make available to Hulu Plus subscribers a selection of current programs, like Jersey Shore, Tosh.0, Teen Mom 2, Manswers, Let’s Stay Together, and Hot in Cleveland 21 days after they air. Viacom content availability on Hulu Plus will vary on a show-by-show basis

Additionally, Hulu Plus subscribers will have access to more than 2,000 episodes of programming from Viacom’s library, including The Chappelle Show, Reno 911, Beavis & Butthead, Real World, Punk’d, Baldwin Hills and many others on PCs, internet-connected TVs and Blu-ray players, gaming consoles, set-top boxes, mobile phones, and tablets (in HD when available).

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Philippe Dauman, President and CEO of Viacom, said, “We are very pleased to partner with Hulu in a way that recognizes the value of our strong brands and the passionate young fans who are attracted to our content. The Hulu Plus service offers us the opportunity to connect with our audiences through an exciting subscription and ad supported platform that is complementary to our existing distribution arrangements. This innovative agreement allows us to benefit from the success and expansion of Hulu and we look forward to bringing our popular content to their growing audience.”

“We are thankful that Viacom was DTS,” said Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu, “Our first order of business in the partnership is GTL with Philippe and his team.”

Bonus question: DTS? Down to… what, exactly?