Americans who miss their favourite television show no longer have to sift through cable channels to catch a rerun. They can instead get their telly fix at a website called Hulu.

Launched in 2007 by NBC and Fox, the major TV networks (the latter owned by the parent company of The Times and Sunday Times), it streams previously screened editions of hundreds of top-rated shows such as 24, Saturday Night Live and The Office — all for free. Hulu, which is to launch in the UK later this year, is said to be the world’s biggest TV website. Last month nearly 9m Americans watched 350m videos on it.

Of course it’s YouTube that remains the daddy of video-sharing sites, with 10 times as many users, but while it is unbeatable for grainy skateboarding cat videos, the Google-owned service is losing its grip on higher-quality content. The TV networks keep asking for pirated recordings of their shows to be removed, while Warner Music Group recently pulled thousands of music videos that it had previously allowed, saying the fraction of a cent it was earning per view wasn’t sufficient.

America’s biggest music companies are now said to be considering a partnership with Hulu, for two good reasons. Hulu will probably pay more per view, because it can demand higher fees from its advertisers — not as high as television, but better than most internet rates. And it’s a safer environment for big business, unlike the anything-goes-till-we-have-to-pull-it approach of YouTube.

Hulu does have one thing in common with its internet rivals: rather than entrust its development to lumbering in-house tech teams, Fox and NBC have put it in the hands of Eric Feng, a 28-year-old former Microsoft researcher. With a team of 10, Feng ground out the entire site’s code in just two months, and four months later, Hulu was running.

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