NBC’s Hulu online media service – which has been called a YouTube for professionally produced video – could soon make the jump to mobile devices, according to CEO Jason Kilar.  Talking at the NAB production expo this week, Kilar described cellphones and other portable devices as “ripe for the Hulu experience” although he declined to be too specific about upcoming announcements for “competitive reasons”.  Hulu is currently the only way to legally watch NBC and Fox content online, after the network pulled its shows from the iTunes store last December citing unhappiness with how Apple was pricing episodes.

In fact, Hulu has been in the news elsewhere today, with NBC exec George Kliavkoff publicly criticising Apple and other content distributors for being too lax with their anti-piracy measures.  According to Kliavkoff, who is NBC’s chief digital officer, it’s the responsibility of the “gatekeeping software” to make sure DRM measures are in place.  Hulu has so far avoided any significant piracy issues by virtue of the fact that users can only watch media online, not download it.

“It may not be identical [on every platform], but anything connected to the Internet would be a good fit for Hulu” Jason Kilar, CEO, Hulu

Kilar described Hulu – and the potential future mobile version – as an opportunity to make money on content “that would otherwise be lost”.  Currently the Flash player the service uses inserts adverts in-between different shows, similar to how standard commercial TV is managed.  He also suggested that NBC’s affiliates could take advantage of Hulu to deliver their own media to mobile devices.

[via Electronista]