US video aggregator Hulu has dropped plans to launch in the UK, reports the Daily Telegraph. According to the report, the UK expansion came to a halt when negotiations with British broadcasters collapsed.

With UK broadcasters Channel 4 and Five already having signed third party deals with YouTube and SeeSaw, the focus was on ITV as the leading UK content partner. However sources say that ITV – where incoming chief executive Adam Crozier started his new job this week – wants to concentrate on its own catch up service, ITV Player.

ITV refused to comment, but speaking last month, ITV’s director of online and interactive Ben McOwen Wilson said that “Hulu is a major success in the US but the UK TV market is a different place. It is much more consolidated, which mean there are fewer online locations than in the US, which users need to visit to get access to their favourite content –- therefore there is less need for aggregators.”

A source close to Hulu said that it was hopeful it could have a UK presence in the future.

5.5 billion videos were viewed online in the UK in February 2010, an increase of 37% compared to the previous year, according to new research from comScore .

Google sites, driven by the popularity of YouTube, grew 17% versus a year ago with 2.5 billion videos viewed in February 2010, further solidifying its position as the leading online video viewing property in the UK. The BBC ranked second with 140 million videos viewed on its sites followed by Megavideo.com with 53 million videos. Other properties in the top 10 were Facebook, Microsoft sites, Channel4, Dailymotion, ITV sites, Blinkx and Sky sites.

Facebook ranked as the fastest growing video property in the top 10, surging 205% in the past year to 43 million videos viewed. Blinkx was the second fastest, growing 204% to nearly 29 million videos viewed. BBC sites (up 143%), ITV sites (up 134%) and Sky sites (up 139%) also achieved triple-digit growth rates over the past year.

 “The UK online video market continues to soar and is attracting a greater and greater share of Internet users’ attention,” said Mike Read, SVP and Managing Director, comScore Europe. “In particular, we’ve seen eyeballs move towards the online channel to watch more long-form, professional video content, such as popular broadcast network TV shows.”

Yahoo! has announced that it has secured the exclusive UK online highlights rights for the English Premier League for the next three seasons (2010-13). The rights are currently held by Virgin Media.

The deal means that from August this year, British football fans can watch five minute highlight packages from every Barclays Premier League match on Yahoo.co.uk, The highlights will be available from midnight on Sunday after weekend matches and at midnight the same day for midweek fixtures.

Yahoo! will also own the rights in the UK to syndicate all or part of the Premier League highlights content to third parties, which the company says will enable it to put together innovative video advertising packages for major brands.  

In the US, Yahoo has similar deals to show major sporting highlights from the NBA basketball, PGA golf, NHL ice hockey and MLB baseball.