ComScore (SCOR) says Hulu generated 856 million video views during the month, second only to Google’s (GOOG) YouTube in the U.S. This makes sense given that Hulu is driven in large part by broadcast TV, which starts running new shows in the fall.

And if Hulu didn’t post record numbers after adding ABC’s shows to the mix, there would be some real head-scratching. But it will be very interesting to see what happens to these numbers next year if Hulu does move ahead with some sort of pay service.

As always, note the huge disparity between YouTube and everyone else. And it’s also worth noting that while Hulu generates more views than any of its non-YouTube competitors, its reach isn’t quite as deep:

All of which is less relevant than the joint venture’s performance, which is still the subject of much debate. People familiar with Hulu tell me it is “close to break-even,” but I worry about putting much stock in words like “close” (or “break-even,” for that matter) without seeing numbers.

And in any case, that’s only half the issue for its owners these days; just as important are the performance of its parent companies and whether all the free stuff on Hulu is helping or hindering their networks and studios.

But more on that after the holiday. For now, here’s wishing you and yours a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.

For those who haven’t been following along, here’s what we know about Vevo:

• It will be powered by Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, which will share ad revenue with the joint venture.
• It is being run by Rio Caraeff, Universal’s veteran digital guy.
• In addition to its equity partnership, its distribution strategy is modeled after Hulu: Sony and Universal videos will appear exclusively on the site and/or YouTube, but the site plans on licensing its stream to other outlets, as Hulu does with portals like MySpace and Comcast’s (CMCSA) Fancast. One obvious place to license the stuff: Hulu itself.
• Neither EMI nor Warner Music Group (WMG), which has created its own Vevo-like channel with YouTube, is participating in the venture, but they could.

It’s not clear if News Corp. (NWS) will end up investing in the joint venture, which is designed to control distribution of “print” content to readers like Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle and Apple’s (AAPL) rumored tablet, or if the company will simply agree to tailor its stuff–most notably, The Wall Street Journal–to the joint venture’s standards.

In either case, News Corp. has yet to officially sign on, sources tell me. An announcement formally acknowledging the JV itself is supposed to be a couple of weeks away, though I have been hearing this for at least six weeks.

No comment from News Corp. or Time Inc., the Time Warner (TWX) publishing unit that has been assembling the JV. Other expected partners include Hearst, Condé Nast and, perhaps, Meredith. (Disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this Web site.)

In some ways, News Corp. is an obvious partner for the coalition, which I like to call “Hulu for magazines.” Murdoch has been an outspoken critic of Amazon’s distribution and pricing policies; he argues that by controlling the subscription of digital newspaper and magazines delivered through its e-reader, Amazon deprives publishers of a valuable asset.

Murdoch also wants more money for the stuff it does sell: In an earnings call last week, he said that while the bookseller was now paying his company up to $6.50 a month for each $15 monthly subscription to The Wall Street Journal, that split wasn’t good enough.

The JV is supposed to solve those problems for publishers by letting them control sales, customer billing and pricing. But it is also primarily designed with magazine publishers in mind, and News Corp. isn’t in that business.

Meanwhile, New Corp.’s Dow Jones unit is proprietary about the system it has already built to handle subscriptions to the Journal’s print and online editions and its BlackBerry and iPhone apps.

While it’s possible that the JV could use the Dow Jones subscription/commerce platform as the technological base of the JV, Dow Jones could be prickly if asked to play well with others. “Newspapers and magazines, don’t mix well, for reasons that aren’t obvious to the outside world,” says a News Corp. executive briefed on some of the company’s conversations.

In any event, balancing different partners’ interests is only one of the hurdles facing the JV. Some others, from the story I published last month:

• They’ll have to convince consumers who already have billing relationships with Amazon, Apple and other vendors to sign up with yet another service.
• They’ll have to convince device makers to play along with the strategy, which runs counter to many of their own plans. Both Amazon and Apple, for instance, have intentionally created closed systems that give them control of both devices and distribution.
• They’ll have to create content consumers want to buy. The new product can’t simply be a digital version of the magazines they’re already printing: That’s already available on the Web, and consumers have shown almost no interest in paying for it, and advertisers haven’t fully embraced it either.

So what exactly will the JV be selling? That’s probably the most difficult question for publishers to answer, made even more difficult because they don’t know what capabilities the e-readers of the future will boast. Apple for instance, refuses to even acknowledge to Time Inc. executives that it plans to produce a tablet device, let alone provide them with specs.

The deal will be structured as a joint venture, and Scripps (SNI) will kick $181 million into the new partnership; it will then issue another $878 million in debt.

Scripps itself frequently pops up as an acquisition candidate, and that chatter has only gotten louder as a new wave of consolidation appears to be in motion, prompted by Comcast’s (CMCSA) pursuit of GE’s (GE) NBC Universal.

Scripps, which had planned on announcing quarterly results this morning, is pushing back its earnings call till tomorrow morning.

Here’s the full press release:

CINCINNATI–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Scripps Networks Interactive Inc, owner and operator of the Food Network and HGTV lifestyle television networks, will enter into a joint venture with Cox Communications Inc. by which it will acquire a controlling interest in the Travel Channel.

The two companies today signed a definitive agreement that, upon completion, will result in Scripps Networks Interactive owning 65 percent of the Travel Channel and Cox Communications retaining a 35 percent minority stake in the network.

The Travel Channel transaction is expected to be completed by or before January 2010.

“Combining the Travel Channel with Food Network and HGTV will make our fast-growing, young company the undisputed global leader in lifestyle programming,” said Kenneth W. Lowe, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Scripps Networks Interactive. “This collection of popular lifestyle networks will be in great demand worldwide and promises to create substantial long-term value for all of our stakeholders.”

Launched in 1987, Travel Channel has grown to become one of America’s best known cable television networks and today reaches about 95 million U.S. television households. The television network–the cornerstone of Travel Channel Media–supports a growing range of cross-platform initiatives including Internet, mobile and social media applications.

“Adding the Travel Channel, and its related enterprises, provides us with a unique opportunity to meaningfully expand our portfolio into a lifestyle category that’s highly desirable to media consumers, advertisers and programming distributors,” Lowe said. “Our vision for Travel follows the same script that’s made Food Network and HGTV two ofthe most powerful brands in all of television. By lending our unparalleled expertise in developing successful lifestyle media businesses, we have every confidence that we can build on Travel’s strong brand identity and leverage the successes achieved to date by the top-notch team at Travel Channel and our new partners at Cox Communications.”

As proposed, the transaction is structured as a leveraged joint venture between Scripps Networks Interactive and Cox Communications.

Cox will contribute the Travel Channel, valued at $975 million, and Scripps Networks Interactive will contribute $181 million in cash to a newly created partnership. The partnership, in turn, will take on $878 million in third-party debt that will be guaranteed by Scripps and indemnified by Cox, with the proceeds to be distributed to Cox.

The transaction will result in the partnership having about $696 million in net debt.

“This solid partnership that we’re establishing today allows us to maintain an interest in Travel Channel while at the same time giving the network an opportunity to leverage the resources and expertise of a successful programmer like Scripps Networks Interactive,” said Cox Communications President Patrick Esser. “Scripps has an outstanding reputation as a company, an employer and a programmer. Over the past 15 years, Scripps Networks Interactive has built a portfolio of leading lifestyle programming brands, and we think this complementary expertise will be a boon to Travel Channel’s future growth.”

Scripps Networks Interactive will control the joint venture and the network will be run as part of the company’s growing portfolio of popular lifestyle media brands.

“The incredibly complementary nature of our lifestyle media businesses presents an abundance of opportunity to provide services for Travel Channel that will result in increased advertising and affiliate revenues and substantial cost synergies,” Lowe said. “We have extensive experience working with partners to build value over the long term. Among cable companies, Cox has an outstanding reputation for its vision and investment for the long-term success of its businesses. We look forward to partnering with them in this venture.”

Scripps Networks Interactive was advised on the transaction by Barclays Capital Inc. and Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom LLP.

The short version is that unlike its broadcast peers, CBS (CBS) has been reluctant to make many of its shows available on the Web because it worries that doing so cuts into its core TV business.

So while GE’s (GE) NBC Universal and News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox put Hulu together, CBS stayed away. And when Disney (DIS) decided to join the joint venture earlier this year, CBS executives argued strenuously against the deal. Instead, CBS has been content to use the Web as a promotional tool for TV via outlets like Google’s (GOOG) YouTube.

The longer version is below, via the transcript of a brief chat I had with Smith this afternoon to discuss his plans and the network’s. This is stuff he’s talked about before–to reporters, in industry forums, and even via emails he wishes he hadn’t written–but I’m running it at length here.

Because 1) I think Smith does a good job of explaining the push-and-pull of Web viewership vs. Web economics that everyone in big media is grappling with, and 2) I want people to see just how difficult it is to keep up when Smith talks. He can get out a lot of words in a relatively short time.

I also had a quick chat with CBS CEO Les Moonves, who made many of the points Smith did, but with less verbiage: I’ll get you that transcript shortly, too.

Peter Kafka: Since you’re going to be advising CBS’s Web video strategy, why don’t you lay out, for the record, where things stand?

Quincy Smith:

We recognize that the Web is two things. It’s both a new medium…and there my example has always been, look at fantasy football: When you’re nice enough to watch the Jets just pound the snot out of the Raiders on Sunday, on a CBS channel…on fantasy football on CBSSports.com, you start on the Tuesday before and end the Wednesday after.

And what are you doing? You’re personalizing it, you’re becoming more of a fan of the game [Smith goes on to praise CBSSports.com's feature set]. All of those things are additive, so when Sunday comes in, you’re actually more of a fan, and you’ve even more convinced you’re going to watch that broadcast show.

Now, I realize that sports is reasonably bulletproof, and a good case study to begin with versus some of the other programming, but the fact is, the Web is a new medium. So what do I also mean? Tech reviews on CNET, Money Watch being watched on BNET. GameSpot videogame reviews.

Access to content that CBS didn’t already have, that are additive–both in their own right online, with the margins that the CNET business is used to, and where we’re getting just stronger and stronger from a margin perspective–and potential content that can also be applied to our [local TV stations owned by CBS], our affiliates, our broadcast news, as well as the radio. So that’s the side of our business that is $600 million revenue and $50 million-plus profit on the bottom line.

The other side of the Web, the side that is most thought of by many journalists, is the threat of an IP-deliverer of video. And how you turn that threat into an opportunity.

And so, from that perspective, as  you know, we didn’t go ahead and say, “Okay, we’re going to lock down and stream, with all of our other peers in broadcast, and come up with the same rules, and embed and right-click this and go away.” I’ve never had a beef with Hulu. Hulu’s always worked as a great service. That’s part of the problem.

As a network, we need to make sure that our content is being seen where the dollars matter. And right now that’s on air. Opportunities like TV Everywhere–we’re not putting all of our eggs in that basket, though we are big advocates of it–are ones where you can actually take and expand and extend the television market online, so it doesn’t matter what screen you watch “CSI” on; what matters is that you watched it, it counts and you saw the ads.

But until that happens, it’s crazy to just stream the shows for zero economics. When in fact you can make a lot more money doing things that are additive and complementary to the rest of the CBS line. That’s where CBS interactive comes in now.

Kafka: But TV viewers are showing an increasing interest in watching their programs on the Web, whether from legal services like the Web or illegal torrents and pirate sites. Don’t you need to reach them where they are?

Smith:

Now, if you really look at those numbers, what they’ll say is [online and offline video are] both growing, right? We’re having the best year ever as America’s largest broadcast network, and I think that 99.9 percent of that–this is the quote I’ve never been able to get in there–is that’s [because] of the great content that we have. There’s some infinitesimal basis point that’s relevant [to CBS ratings because] we are making sure that when people watch it, they’re more inclined to watch it on television. For now.

Once that solution moves, once those economics move–whether that’s more ads, [higher] CPMs, more ad buyers….You and I can say all day long, “We’re sold out on Web video. That’s going really well. It’s sold out.” Well, no kidding, it’s sold out. It’s a $700 million market. The television market is $120 billion. And of that, $700 million, half of those [ad buyers] are spending  90 percent of their time doing Google keywords, not buying online video.

The key is, how do you turn television buyers into video buyers? And that’s where a solution like TV Everywhere comes into play.

And by the way, looking at [Hulu CEO Jason] Kilar’s comments the other day, in Colorado [at an industry convention], he sees that too. He’s more sophisticated on this stuff than most anybody. From the perspective of, he understands that’s where the big dollars are. And so he probably went at it as, “I’m going to aggregate all the people first, so hopefully things like TV everywhere come to us.” From our perspective at CBS, we’ve got to go to them.

I don’t hate Hulu. Hulu’s world-class video viewing. What I don’t understand is, why license all that content to something that works that well, that seamlessly, yet–without the economic model around it?

Is Hulu putting up a pay wall around its Web TV site? Nope.

Does Hulu want to charge people to watch Web TV? Yes.

Confused? Don’t be.

It’s pretty straightforward: Hulu, the joint venture between News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, GE’s (GE) NBC Universal and Disney’s (DIS) ABC, doesn’t plan on charging people to watch the stuff it’s currently airing on the site–a mix of first-run shows from broadcast TV, a limited number of cable TV shows and a smattering of movies. But Hulu is trying to figure out how to create some kind of premium offering where you’ll pay for stuff that isn’t on the site right now.

That’s what Hulu’s backers have been saying for months, so it’s a little puzzling that News Corp. COO Chase Carey’s comments got folks worked up yesterday. Meanwhile, multiple sources familiar with Hulu’s plans tell me that…Hulu doesn’t actually have a plan yet, but it is trying to piece one together.

There are some pretty obvious ways to go here. Hulu could sell movies or TV shows on a pay-per-view basis, or it could sell subscriptions to shows it doesn’t offer now or to a deeper offering of shows it already has. You could call it “Hulu Plus” (no charge for that one, guys).

If you’re a fan of Fox’s “Family Guy,” for instance, Hulu is only of limited help: The site only has the most recent five episodes. So how much would you pay to watch the rest of them?

If you don’t have an answer for that, don’t worry–Team Hulu doesn’t know, either. Nor can they tell you if airing free shows on Hulu has cut into other revenue streams like broadcast TV advertising or DVD sales, even though “we’ve done a thousand regression analyses on this,” says an industry executive involved in the site.

Do bear in mind that this was a problem Hulu’s backers didn’t really envision when they were dreaming up the site; at the time, they were most concerned with building a video site that would allow them to barter with Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL).

Now they own one of the biggest video sites on the Web, one they say is performing ahead of plan. And Hulu is selling enough advertising that it’s coming close to reaching break-even, according to executives I spoke to this week.

But at the very least, adding a pay component to Hulu helps mollify those who fear the site is cannibalizing their existing businesses. Or who simply want another revenue stream. And a pay element dovetails with Hulu’s interest in joining up with the “authentication” movement pushed by cable guys like Comcast (CMCSA) and Time Warner (TWX).

Meanwhile, here’s the use case for Hulu that its backers originally envisioned–“catch up viewing.” I was on a plane when last night’s episode of the “The Office” aired, but I can watch the whole thing–with ads I can’t skip–on my laptop today. And so can you:

Terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed, but I’m told the transaction values the joint venture at $300 million. Google’s (GOOG) YouTube isn’t an owner in the JV but will share revenue in exchange for lending Vevo its massive distribution platform. The site, which will exist both outside YouTube and within YouTube as a branded channel with its own player, is scheduled to launch later this year.

Vevo has been seeking an outside money source for some time; PaidContent had previously reported the venture was looking for a $300 million valuation.

But the most important part about the outside money is that it’s outside: The investment is designed in large part to allay antitrust issues, given that Vevo’s existing owners represent two of the four major music labels. Providence provided the same cushion to Hulu, which was originally put together by GE’s (GE) NBC Universal and News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox.

Abu Dhabi Media, which is owned by the Abu Dhabi government, has made several forays into Western media, but until now, all of its deals have been focused on Hollywood. Two years ago, for instance, the company announced a $1 billion pact with Time Warner’s (TWX) Warner Brothers to finance movies and build a theme park, though that deal has yet to yield much activity. Earlier this month, it made a much more modest $10 million pledge to back Walter Parkes and Laurie McDonald, the movie producers who once ran DreamWorks studios.

Here’s the release:

VEVO PARTNERS WITH ABU DHABI MEDIA COMPANY

Abu Dhabi Media Company Joins Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment
for World Class Online Premium Music Service

New York, New York, Monday, October 19, 2009…VEVO, the new premium music video and entertainment service powered by YouTube, has received a strategic investment from Abu Dhabi Media Company (ADMC), one of the world’s fastest growing, multi-platform media organizations. The announcement was made today by Doug Morris, Chairman & CEO of Universal Music Group and Co-Chairman/Founder of VEVO, Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, Chief Executive Officer of Sony Music Entertainment & Co-Chairman of VEVO, Rio Caraeff, President & Chief Executive Officer of VEVO, H.E. Mohamed Khalaf Al Mazroui, Chairman of ADMC, and Edward Borgerding, Chief Executive Officer of ADMC. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

With this transaction, VEVO is now formed as an independent and fully funded entity with Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment (SME) and Abu Dhabi Media Company (ADMC) as founding shareholders. Funding from the shareholders will enable VEVO to come to market with an attractive premium music offering for consumers and advertisers alike.

Launching in the United States and Canada later this year with a further international roadmap to be announced, VEVO will be a premium destination and syndication network for the very best in top-notch music video content that will leverage the massive existing traffic of YouTube.

“This global partnership flags Abu Dhabi Media Company’s commitment to establish a leading position in the digital media industry. It is part of an integrated approach to expanding the global digital presence and brand portfolio of Abu Dhabi Media Company, and it illustrates our partnering approach with innovators in digital media services and technologies”, stated H.E. Mohamed Khalaf Al Mazroui, Chairman of ADMC, on joining UMG and SME to create VEVO.

“It’s a credit to the music community, and to the global opportunity that VEVO represents, that we have been able to attract such a solid investment partner with the vision and track record of Abu Dhabi Media Company,” commented Rio Caraeff, President & Chief Executive Officer of VEVO. “Abu Dhabi Media Company brings to the venture important funding support and a team with enormous global media experience and insight, and we look forward to working with them to seize the many opportunities ahead of us.”

“Consumer demand for music video entertainment is growing significantly today and is transforming the digital entertainment market and the music industry by fuelling new media business models. VEVO fits our vision and goals perfectly, as we are expanding our capabilities and continue to build the market for digital entertainment around the world.  VEVO will redefine the way premium music video entertainment is consumed, created and shared in a global community of music audiences,” said Edward Borgerding, Chief Executive Officer of Abu Dhabi Media Company

“We’re now entering a new exciting phase in the digital media industry in the region and we’re determined to be at the forefront of it”, added Ricky Ghai, ADMC’s Executive Director, Digital Group. “With VEVO there’s real opportunity for incredible growth, as both brand advertisers and consumers are looking for new premium video experiences online.”

Check it out (click tables to enlarge):

Note that these numbers are actually all down from August. Apparently some of you spent your last days before returning to work or school in front of your Web browser.

Meanwhile, Nielsen’s Top 10 list has the usual suspects. That is–Google’s (GOOG) YouTube and then everyone else. Interesting to note the disparity between total audience and total streams on Hulu compared to Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft’s (MSFT) MSN. Hulu is attracting a smaller but much more engaged audience than the big portals.

At some point, this could be a problem for the joint venture between News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, GE’s (GE) NBC Universal and Disney’s (DIS) ABC since advertisers ultimately want reach. But it’s still astonishingly early for the site–recall that it only went out of beta in March 2008, and doesn’t have a major portal promoting it.

One caveat: Note that for whatever reason, Web video publishers tend to push the numbers they get from comScore (SCOR) more than the Nielsen numbers. But directionally, they tend to say the same thing.

Allrighty, then. If you’re going to spend so much time watching Web clips, best to make sure you’re watching something excellent. Like this clip from last night’s “The Daily Show”–a classic evisceration of CNN. Jon Stewart and crew often go after the cable channel and its brethren, but this one is particularly good. Warning! It is more than 11 minutes long!

Squires has spent the past few months convincing other publishers to join a new joint venture aimed at a market that doesn’t really exist yet–magazine-like publications to be delivered via e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s rumored tablet.

The idea: The new company, which will operate independently from the publishers that invest in it, will create a digital storefront where consumers can purchase and manage their subscriptions, which can be delivered to any device. The pitch: Control a direct relationship with consumers while gaining leverage with heavyweights like Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN).

Industry executives briefed on Squires’s plan say it has been well received by Time Inc.’s peers and that several major publishers, including Hearst and Condé Nast, are expected to sign on for the JV, which isn’t scheduled to debut until 2010. No comment from Hearst, Condé Nast or Time Inc., a unit of Time Warner (TWX).

Many of the venture’s big details have yet to be hammered down. At one point, for instance, Time Inc. had explored the idea of including newspapers in the new company’s offering, sources say. The JV may also want to include a noncontent partner as an investor, as Hulu did with Providence Equity and as Vevo, the “Hulu for music” JV that Universal Music is creating with Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, plans to do. That approach is supposed to appease antitrust regulators’ worries about a group of content companies banding together.

But the rough outlines of Squires’s plan are attractive enough to publishers, who are hopeful that mobile devices like the Kindle will create a new market for them. And if that market does show up, they want to make sure they’re the ones in charge of sales and distribution. That’s been a huge problem for the music industry, whose digital sales are essentially controlled by Apple. And it has already cropped up as a point of contention with Amazon, which currently handles sales for all content delivered via its Kindle reader.

Other selling points for the JV: The ability to set standards for mobile content and the ability to integrate advertising into the publications. One thing the company isn’t supposed to do: Create an e-reader itself.

The takeaway, via a Time Inc. presentation that has circulated among publishers: “our destiny with readers, advertisers and distributors … [is] in our hands.”

Of course, there are plenty of hurdles facing the joint venture, starting with the fact that media joint ventures have a checkered record at best (though Hearst and Condé, for instance, have already partnered on Comag, a wholesale distribution company). But there are bigger problems for Squires and company. For instance:

• They’ll have to convince consumers who already have billing relationships with Amazon, Apple and other vendors to sign up with yet another service.
• They’ll  have to convince device makers to play along with the strategy, which runs counter to many of their own plans. Both Amazon and Apple, for instance, have intentionally created closed systems that give them control of both devices and distribution.
• They’ll have to create content consumers want to buy. The new product can’t simply be a digital version of the magazines they’re already printing: That’s already available on the Web, and consumers have shown almost no interest in paying for it, and advertisers haven’t fully embraced it either.

So what exactly will the JV be selling? That’s probably the most difficult question for publishers to answer, made even more difficult because they don’t know what capabilities the e-readers of the future will boast. Apple for instance, refuses to even acknowledge to Time Inc. executives that it plans to produce a tablet device, let alone provide them with specs.

But publishers feel they’ve got nothing to lose by trying. “We know that traditional magazines are going away, and that magazines on the Web don’t work,” says a publishing executive working on the plan. “But this gives us a chance to serve the reader who will pay for content, and provide advertising that really works. Can you think of a better idea?”

Vevo

Kohl’s job is a key one at the venture, whose premise is that the music industry can do a better job of selling its video inventory than sites like Google’s (GOOG) YouTube. Vevo is a joint venture owned (for now) by Sony (SNE) and Vivendi’s Universal Music Group; YouTube will help power the site and share in some of its revenue.

In theory, there could be a lot of dollars to go around. When Vevo opens its doors later this year, it is expected to generate some 450 million video streams a month. In theory, the fact that a single company controls the way the videos are displayed and distributed will make those streams more attractive to advertisers.

But there are plenty of skeptics who think the site will flounder, in large part because the music industry has never figured out how to run a successful consumer business and because media companies have a terrible track record when it comes to joint ventures. In Vevo’s favor: They said the same thing about Hulu, and that venture has been a success, at least operationally.

Kohl will run a six-person sales team he intends to expand, people familiar with Vevo’s strategy tell me. Until now, Vevo head Rio Caraeff has been overseeing sales himself–and learning on the job, since he didn’t have any sales experience of his own. Vevo now employs about 45 people.

At Nokia, Kohl ran the company’s interactive ad group; he has also put in time at Viacom’s (VIA) MTV Networks, Vivendi Universal and Comedy Central.

Today’s example: Rubicon Project, a Los Angeles-based advertising-optimization start-up, has raised a $9 million C round led by Peacock Equity, the joint venture co-owned by GE Capital and GE’s (GE) NBC Universal. This follows a $13 million equity and debt round the company raised just a few months ago. Rubicon has raised $45 million since its 2007 launch.

CEO Frank Addante, whose company helps publishers manage their relationships with advertising networks, says he’ll use the new cash to acquire other ad-tech start-ups. Earlier this month, Rubicon picked up Others Online, a behavioral targeting company.

Keeping a close eye on all of this activity: Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT), all of which are reportedly looking at ad-tech acquisitions themselves.

My pal Owen Thomas, late of Valleywag, has published a piece for NBC’s Bay Area local site that suggests that Time Inc. wants to get into the hardware business and produce its own e-reader.

That’s something other publishers, like Hearst and News Corp. (NWS), are actually doing or have at least mulled. But multiple sources familiar with the Time Warner (TWX) unit’s thinking say that’s not the case here.

But the publisher certainly is thinking about ways to create specialized content for e-reader devices and about the best way to distribute that content.

Time Warner executives have talked about this openly for many months–see Time Inc. digital guru John Squires’s comments in June–and Thomas appears to have gotten his hands on an internal document that addresses the same topic.

Most intriguing, according to Thomas’s read of the documents: A Hulu-like spinoff that would do…something:

The presentation concludes that Time Inc. and other partners should form a new, jointly owned company. Time Inc. might spin out its Maghound service, a service which lets consumers bundle multiple magazines together into a single monthly subscription, to form the base of the joint venture. The company is also considering acquiring other businesses to jumpstart the venture.

No comment from Time Inc.

But I do know that Time Inc.’s executives have met with other publishers about collaborating on e-reader standards, etc. And I do know that Time Inc. executives  think a special version of their print products, designed specifically for e-readers, is a good idea. Most everyone I talk to in magazine publishing, in fact, believes this.

And I understand why they do. In their minds, the e-reader versions of their products function just about the same way magazines do: People pay to read them and advertisers pay to distribute their messages through them. And–this part is crucially important, from their perspective–publishers retain control of distribution and the billing relationship with their customers.

That relationship gets obliterated in Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle model: Publishers wholesale the stuff to Jeff Bezos, who deals with consumers directly. This is also one of the music industry’s big regrets about the digital age. Even though labels are selling their stuff on the Web, via Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes and others, they still don’t have direct relationships with its customers.

Which is why publishers are desperately hoping that they’ll be able to push their stuff through someone other than Jeff Bezos. On the surface, at least, it looks as though their wishes are being met: A bevy of Kindle competitors–Sony (SNE), Plastic Logic, iRex, etc.–is surfacing. Surely one or more of those will figure out how to offer publishers the terms they want.

But even if one or more of the Kindle clones succeeds, print publishers still have a core problem: They need to convince consumers that content–in any form, on any device–is worth paying for. That will work in some cases, but for many it’s going be a very hard slog.

The numbers come from Nielsen’s quarterly “Three Screen” report, which measures eyeballs watching video on TV, on the Web and on mobile devices. And just like the report Nielsen put out three months ago, it shows that even while Americans gobble up more online video, they’re still watching as much TV as they ever have. More, even: The number of viewers increased by 0.9 percent, while the time they spent watching TV increased 1.5 percent.

Here’s how the numbers break down (click tables below to enlarge):

Total number of viewers:

Time spent viewing:

Two different theories, which are not mutually exclusive, may explain the ever-increasing amount of video we’re supposedly gorging on:

• We’re out of work or underemployed, and we’re filling those hours with sitcoms and dogs-on-skateboard clips.
• We’re multitasking and gorging on all of this stuff at the same time.

On that last theory: Nielsen says 57 percent of us are spending at least an hour a month watching Web video and TV at the same time. We’re much more likely to turn on the TV while we’re Web-surfing than vice versa, though.

No surprise, by the way, to see that people are spending more time watching Web video. But interesting to note that while the universe of mobile video watchers has increased, they’re spending less time watching.

For what it’s worth, Nielsen says that short-form clips–like those from Google’s (GOOG) YouTube–make up 83 percent of Web video viewing, while “name-brand TV network content” makes up the majority of mobile video. Note that Hulu, the joint venture between News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, GE’s (GE) NBC and Disney’s (DIS) ABC, doesn’t have a mobile option, so it can’t claim credit for those eyeballs.

Too many numbers! Time for video. Here’s a clip of the Minnesota Vikings’ (!) Brett Favre from this week’s “Monday Night Football” game. This one has been seen more than half a million times, but there’s no way it’s legal. So it will go down sooner or later–both the NFL and ESPN are pretty zealous about this stuff.

But right now it’s promoted for all to see on YouTube’s homepage. Which means there are still some kinks in the company’s vaunted “ContentID” program.

Now that MySpace has finished its acquisition of iLike, what it’s going to do with it? Don’t think music, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta stressed in a press conference today, think about “socialization of content.”

What does that mean? Pretty vague, which, I gather, is Van Natta’s intention.

But in short, what Van Natta is saying is that he has bought a 26-person company–for $19.5 million–because it has engineering talent that is good at building stuff that 1) helps users find content and share it with one other, and that 2) works on multiple platforms.

Van Natta did make a point of downplaying iLike’s ability to help MySpace build out its music offering, though. Which makes sense, because MySpace already has a music platform that it owns in a separate joint venture with the big music labels.

And because while iLike is known as a music platform, it really isn’t. It doesn’t have deals with the music labels that let users listen to full songs, and it only recently launched a way for users to buy songs. What it does do is recommend music based on stuff you like, and lets you share your likes and recommendations with friends.

You can see how the people who built the iLike platform–primarily on the back of Facebook, where Van Natta was formerly COO–could be useful for MySpace, which is in the midst of a drastic overhaul.

Van Natta was brought in to run the once-hot social network at the behest of corporate owner News Corp. (NWS) earlier this year, and has been busily hiring and firing since then.

The iLike deal is Van Natta’s first major acquisition since he came on, but it is essentially a hiring move, too. The plan is to keep all of the company’s key talent, including CEO Ali Partovi, President Hadi Partovi and CTO Nat Brown. (All three are in the picture at the top of this post, along with Van Natta and MySpace COO Mike Jones. From left to right: Ali Partovi, Jones, Van Natta, Brown and Hadi Partovi.)

Speaking of that talent: Asked about All Things Digital’s report about tax issues slowing the last stages of deal, Van Natta declared that “this was actually one of the smoother sailing deals that I’ve been involved in.”

Which may be true, but it doesn’t mean there weren’t tax problems for the company he was acquiring, as well as a delay.

In one email to the entire iLike board on Monday afternoon, titled “late-breaking tax issues with iLike/MySpace merger,” Co-founder Hadi Partovi wrote, referring to his brother and also Co-founder Ali:

“Ali & I recently learned about a potential tax liability that could be significantly disadvantageous to us as a result of the merger.

“We don’t have definitive info yet, and we’re just as disappointed as anybody to learn this at the 11th hour.”

Then, Hadi Partovi sent yet another email to Gregg Winiarski, GC at IAC (IACI) yesterday, titled “potentially significant tax risks for iLike common shareholder (esp Partovis).”

Before IAC had spun off Ticketmaster Entertainment (TKTM) last year, which was one of iLike’s big investors, Winiarski had apparently been involved in some iLike issues around compensation.

So Hadi asked him: “gregg, do you have any thoughts on this? since the structure of moving into common-stock (to avoid income tax) was your idea, I was hoping you [would weigh in].”

Winiarski–in several exchanges, in which Hadi’s brother and also Co-founder Ali Partovi even asked if IAC and Ticketmaster might indemnify them if problems arose–politely declined to weigh in, presumably since IAC was no longer an investor in iLike.

Ali Partovi intently asked for a call “TODAY,” but Winiarski did not bite on that or the indemnification request.

In the end, Ali Partovi wrote: “We’re moving forward with the deal, mainly because Hadi and I are not the types to hold up a deal over this. But I’d appreciate if you’d be open to a discussion about the risk exposure we’re sustaining here.”

Apparently it did not hold up the deal.

Maybe someone can ask Van Natta about that in the all-company meeting MySpace has scheduled for next week, which he mentions in this internal memo announcing the deal:

Hi everyone,

I’m pleased to announce this morning that MySpace has entered into an agreement to acquire iLike.

iLike is a social music discovery service that in just two years has become the largest, most comprehensive music application across all social networks. With 55 million users and 1.5 billion monthly impressions, their growth speaks directly to the usability of the product, the technology behind it, and the great team that built it.

One of the great things about MySpace is that its openness enables discovery–we’re going to take that strategy one step forward by also allowing users to experience content on the distributed Web.

On MySpace, users connect with the content they love in a centralized and social environment. On iLike, users can access the content they love in a highly distributed environment across their favorite websites. This shared vision around content distribution is a key component to the future of MySpace.

What the iLike team has done with music is applicable to all of the areas that are important to MySpace users today such as entertainment, video, and games. Because we view the opportunities of this acquisition beyond the music category, MySpace Inc. will be making this acquisition separate and apart from the MySpace Music joint venture.

The company’s current management–CEO Ali Partovi, President Hadi Partovi, and CTO Nat Brown–will continue to lead iLike’s future. I’ve known Hadi and Ali for almost 10 years and the two of them, along with Nat are talented entrepreneurs with a strong track record for building world class product.

Just to give you a sense of their history and professional achievements:

· Ali established himself as an entrepreneur by co-founding LinkExchange, which started as the web’s first and largest banner-advertising network and grew to become the web’s largest small-business portal before being acquired by Microsoft in 1998. In 2002, Ali became CEO of Garageband.com and then iLike.

· Hadi co-founded Tellme Networks, a leading provider of voice/telephone technology and services, where he ran product and technology, and later spearheaded the company’s shift from consumer services to enterprise call-center automation for AT&T, FedEx, and E*TRADE. Tellme Networks was acquired by Microsoft in 2007. Both acquisitions (LinkExchange and TellMe) rank as two of Microsoft’s biggest deals to date. Hadi was also an original group program manager for Internet Explorer, a general manager of MSN.com, and he incubated Start.com (now Live.com).

· Nat has a deep and respected history as an early architect at Microsoft. He rapidly earned a reputation as one of Microsoft’s foremost technical minds by creating and evangelizing the ActiveX/COM object model in the early 90s. He went on to play a seminal role in the creation of XML, DHTML, and as a primary architect of the first XBox. After retiring from Microsoft, he served briefly as CTO at CAC Media and has informally advised numerous startups.

In addition to this great management team, iLike has 26 employees in various technical and business functions including a market leading development team that will join MySpace. iLike will remain headquartered in Seattle but our teams will be working very closely. I’m excited to see the great things that come out of the collaboration between our management teams, employees, and cultures.

We have an all-company meeting next week and I look forward to seeing everyone and answering any questions you might have.

Please join me in welcoming Ali, Hadi, Nat and everyone at iLike to MySpace.

Boxee has a small but passionate following of some 600,000 users, and it’s gotten a lot of attention this year, much of it via a fight with Hulu, which doesn’t want its video showing up on Boxee browsers.

But Boxee doesn’t have any revenue, or much of a concrete plan to generate any in the near term: The software is free for consumers, and while CEO Avner Ronen thinks there could be some rev-share possibilities with Web video providers down the road, they’re…down the road.

So what’s the appeal for company’s backers, which also include Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital, which put $4 million into the company eight months ago and participated in this round as well? It’s pretty straightforward: The $70 billion TV business is in the first steps of a massive reordering, and perhaps Boxee can play a role in it.

The chief appeal is that Boxee can function as an “over the top” alternative to cable TV, giving users the ability to get their favorite programs on a big screen without having to pony up to the likes of Comcast (CMCSA). Ronen wants to use some of his money to ramp up efforts to strike deals with consumer electronics companies like Sony (SNE) and LG, which are pushing Internet-connected TVs, and Microsoft (MSFT), whose Xbox game console is increasingly functioning as an entertainment hub.

But there are plenty of other players jockeying for similar positions, from services like ZillionTV to device makers like Roku, and even Apple (AAPL). And Boxee’s status as a potential disruptor has a downside as well: It’s the reason that Hulu, backed at the time by News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox and GE’s (GE) NBC, sought to prevent the service from accessing its shows earlier this year.

That said, there hasn’t been much saber-rattling from either side in recent months. Perhaps this has to do with Disney’s (DIS) ABC, which had previously enjoyed friendly relations with Boxee, coming aboard the joint venture.

Here are a couple interviews I’ve conducted with Ronen this year: The first one was taped at the Consumer Electronics Show show in January, when his start-up was soaking up the first wave of attention from the TV industry; the second was taped in March, after Boxee had attracted Hulu’s ire.