-By Mike Shields, Mediaweek

NEW YORK Viacom has struck its first deal with Hulu to distribute content from its family of cable networks, specifically Comedy Central's The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report -- as the company continues to steer clear of delivering any of its top series to YouTube, the reigning leader in the online video category.

As of Tuesday, Hulu began featuring full-length episodes of both shows, bringing two of the more popular series among the Web-savvy, clip-sharing generation to the increasingly robust video site, itself a joint venture between News Corp. and NBC Universal.

The move represents both another stamp of approval for Hulu's professionally produced, long-form video model by a major traditional TV producer, as well as another blow to Google's YouTube.

That site, still the largest repository of video clips on the Internet, has been unable or unwilling to come to acceptable distribution arrangements with many of the TV world's content giants. In fact, the proliferation of illegally posted clips of The Daily Show and Colbert were at the heart of the ongoing legal tussle between Google and Viacom.

Meanwhile, Hulu also announced that it has inked a deal with PBS to distribute several of its series, including Nova and Scientific American Frontiers, which will be available for users sometime this month.