At this morning’s Streaming Media East keynote, NBC Universal Chief Digital Officer George Kliavikoff talked up NBC’s original digital programming strategy, the future of Hulu and expressed optimism that a new iTunes deal may be near.

On Apple:
All we want to do in any distribution agreement is to set the wholesale price…on every platform and with every partner in the world with the exception of one, we’ve gotten to set that price.

I applaud the moves that have been made lately by Apple. In the UK now there is variable pricing…the deal with HBO content…that we love. So things are moving in the right direction.

On piracy:
We want our partners to help the industry combat piracy…if you think short term it’s great for consumers to get everything for free…but eventually the money runs out…if we in a consumer friendly way alert people that what they’re doing is illegal and offer an alternative…this has nothing to do with DRM.

For example when Hulu content is uploaded somewhere else presumably we can use technology to detect that and push consumers to the place where that content is available legally.

YouTube has done a pretty good job lately of filtering what’s on their site…but you turn back the clock six months on any of the big UGC sites, it’s rampant.

We’re aggressive about making sure our stuff comes down from YouTube,.YouTube has an active program where we can start pre-filtering some of that stuff and they’ve made great strides in the last couple months…if you create a great experience over time people will migrate to that great experience…what we did with Hulu.

On Predictive Marketing and Original Digital Content
For the company the cable model has been hugely successful, focus on a particular community (for example Bravo has a very specific audience) Filter by top ten advertising categories. Focus on undeserved: We ventured to create a set of content verticals “digital cable networks if you will” where advertisers can spend their money…we do syndication deals with sites that are particular in that genre.

We launched about a month ago our auto channel, DriverTV.com, we went into the marketplace, found the absolute best content…all HD, ”it’s really like car porn” we syndicate it across large websites, that particular content is great because they’re [reaching] an in-market consumer so we get paid by Cadillac….Revenue we generate we’re going to reinvest in original car content.

The Health Network – we produce in excess of 120 videos a week, that had aired once on TV and syndicate them online. Yourtotalhealth, launched with a bunch of syndication partners.

In these niche categories they’re almost sold before we make them. In the case of autos the car companies get to use that footage so it’s almost no cost, and in the case of the Health Network it’s footage we already have.

On The Future of Hulu
I think in three years from now if they do their job well…it will be a one stop shop for a lot of great content…I happen to be biased but I think it’s the best user experience on the internet today….I think also this strategy they have of allowing anyone to take any section of a video and embed it anywhere in the world is great…also other devices, TV, Mobile, continuing to work closely with advertisers to…use the interactivity of the platforms.

On the CBS-CNET Deal:
I can’t wait for it to close because I can’t wait for CBS content to be on Hulu…all kidding aside I’m good friends with Neil and Quincy, I think it’s a great way for CBS to get a lot of scale very quickly…I envy Quincy because he operates under different economic conditions than I do…I work for GE, I couldn’t have gotten that deal through.

NBC has added another web series to add to its digital programming slate. According to the Hollywood Reporter, NBCU has acquired domestic rights to distribute Electric Farm Entertainment’s Gemini Division, an online only Sci-fi series featuring Rosario Dawson as well as the “zombie comedy” series Woke Up Dead.

Sony Pictures Television will co-produce the series and has acquired international distribution rights. Last year, Sony acquired rights to EFI’s original 130-episode series Afterworld which premiered on MySpace. The series was later turned into a MMO game by Sony Creative Software.

The EFI model is unique and ambitious in scale but it seems to be paying off. Afterworld creator Brent Friedman described it this way to the Wonderland blog last year:

We came up with this notion of an animated drama, told in bites, and our first season was going to be 130 episodes. We were told we were crazy and it would never work…We realized that we’d created modular entertainment: it was designed to be a daily delivery, mon-fri, for 6 months. What we thought is… we can distribute on mobile overseas… We can distribute over the internet, in conjunction with network play: take 5 episodes and smush them together, and you have a 15m episode, which can be used as interstitials.

And they have followed this model with their new series’, each available as 50 x 3 minute episodes or as 6 broadcast half hours and supported by mobile games, destination websites, character blogs “and other emerging forms of digital and interactive content.”

Look for the series on various NBC properties late this summer but the net cautioned they will not be following their Quarterlife misstep by sending it directly to air. “If there were to be a TV show, that would be a whole different show” said producer Stan Rogow.