Hulu chief executive Jason Kilar shared some numbers today to show where the online TV service stood at the end of October.

Hulu chief executive Jason Kilar shared some numbers today to show where the online TV service stood at the end of October.

The service launched its beta test almost exactly three years ago, so while the service is relatively early, Kilar said, this seems like a good time to assess the progress it has made already. Especially since GigaOm, the tech news site hosting the NewTeeVee Live conference where Kilar was speaking, had originally predicted that Hulu was doomed to failure.

So here are the Hulu statistics Kilar shared:

  • 30 million monthly users
  • 260 million content streams (each TV episode is counted as a content stream)
  • 800 million ad streams
  • 352 ad partners
  • On-track to earn more than $240 million in revenue in 2010 (compared to $25 million in 2008 and $108 million in 2009)
That's still tiny compared to the total audience and money in the traditional and cable TV industries. And Hulu probably shares a large amount of that revenue with its content partners. Still, as an indicator that Internet TV could be a big business, it's pretty promising. After Kilar's talk, GigaOm's Om Malik suggested that if the company continues that kind of revenue growth next year, it could be on-track for the rumored initial public offering. Naturally, Kilar declined to comment.

Here's a post on some other comments Kilar made today about advertising on Hulu.