It was bound to happen sooner or later. Today Disney and video streaming site Hulu announced a partnership that will put Disney and ABC programming onto the site. And, according to John Paczkowski at All Things D, Disney isn’t just adding programming, it’s becoming a partner in the venture. In fact, it’s taking a 27 percent stake.

Paczkowski said that no ESPN material will show up on Hulu as a result of this agreement.  And nothing was said about Disney animation, which bums me out. I’d really like to be able to view classic animated shorts online. Though maybe that’s what the press release says when it said “popular library titles from the Walt Disney Studios.” Somehow I doubt it.

What will you see? You’ll be happy if you’re a Lost or Gray’s Anatomy fan. Also, Desperate Housewives, Private Practice, Jimmy Kimmel Live and other ABC shows. There’ll be soaps, ABC Family programming and some Disney Channel original programming. And stuff from the ABC vaults will appear on Hulu, which makes me happy because I love catching up on classic shows.

If you’re keeping score at home, this makes three out of the four major American broadcast television networks putting their content on Hulu, the venture that just a short while ago people were making fun of the name of and saying it’d fail. Meanwhile, CBS is (apparently) happily alone on its side of the fence now. But there’s got to be little question among network executives: Streaming programming over the Internet (Hulu or otherwise) works. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t have seen this deal. Disney’s made a ringing endorsement today.

Also if you’re keeping score at home, you really need to find a new hobby.

If you’d like to know more about streaming audio and video, you can take a look at these HowStuffWorks.com articles:

How Streaming Video and Audio Work
How Internet TV Works
How Television Works