NBCUniversal is making a bold move to offer a dozen shows directly online through services like Hulu.

Linda Yaccarino, president of ad sales for NBCUniversal released a statement saying “The combination of digital video alongside television content is extremely powerful and becoming an increasingly important part of the connection advertisers make with consumers.” she said. “We want to offer our partners the unique ability to harness the power of our creative assets along with our distribution capabilities including the video-on-demand platform like no other company can do.”

This is NBCUniversals second move into producing shows solely for online distribution. In 2008 and 2009 they produced “Gemini Division” and “Woke Up Dead” solely for online distribution.

NBCUniversals move is seen as a effort to ward off new competition from Netflix and Amazon. Even Yahoo and YouTube have been rumored to be making the move into the more traditional 30minute to 1 hour TV show formats. With more ad dollars moving online where ads can not be skipped. NBCUniversal clearly wants to make sure they get a chunk of the ad dollars available form as many sources as possible.

It is rumored that the previously announced prequel to “Heros” will be released in 2015 as part of this online media push.

Comcast owns NBCUniversal and clearly wants to diversify as they see their cable subscriber base dwindling. This could be the first major crack by a cable company as the cord cutters movement builds steam.

ABC and CBS will be closely watching this move with a eye on how to best move into more online distribution. NBCUniversal move could be the first in what maybe a wall of new shows available through sources like Netflix and Hulu.