Hulu eyeing UK, France, Germany, Japan - exec

LONDON, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Hulu, the video website owned by News Corp and NBC Universal, hopes to expand internationally and is interested in Britain, France, Germany and Japan, an executive linked with the service said on Monday.

Peter Smith, President of NBC Universal International, told a European Media Leaders Summit that his firm would love to roll out the online video joint venture further but that there were no concrete plans to announce yet.

He said they were interested in Britain, France, Germany and Japan because online video was already popular and growing strongly in those countries.

Hulu shows free episodes of current shows as well as past hits and has shown early signs of success in a market dominated by Google Inc's YouTube. Smith told the conference that advertising revenues on Hulu had not been affected by the economic downturn.

"Hulu is on this tremendous growth curve and it's very compelling to advertisers," he told the conference in central London.

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