

Hulu Is Popular, But That Wasn't the Goal - gatsby
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-hulu-20110412,0,6967255.story

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seanalltogether
One of the stupidest restrictions on streaming that I've seen comes courtesy
of HBO Go. Here's a service I would gladly pay $5 a month for unlimited access
to, and yet hbo won't let me buy it outside a cable subscription. So they've
left me with a choice, pay $65 for comcast + hbo, or grab their content from
bittorrent.

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TillE
Speaking of HBO, I'm really looking forward to Game of Thrones, but as far as
I can tell, there's absolutely no legal way for me to watch it in Germany.
There's Sky Atlantic in a few other countries, but not here.

I'll buy the DVD, of course, but...why won't you take my money _now_? It makes
no sense. Whatever other broadcast deals you make, you should also be selling
episodes or online subscriptions for a fixed price to everyone.

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macrael
Looks like most HBO shows are available on the German iTunes store. My guess,
though, is that they don't post their video there until the DVD's are
available. Can anyone confirm how that's worked for HBO in the past?

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wmf
Yes, HBO's general strategy is to encourage subscription, not DVDs or a la
carte downloads.

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kin
From what I understand, the "Most Popular" shows on Hulu and the shows I
normally watch off Hulu are mostly prime time network shows. These shows are
all available for free in HD over the air. Why aren't cable companies blaming
their diminishing subscriptions on this as well?

Cable is so incredibly overpriced that Hulu was almost a legal godsend of an
alternative for many consumers, even the paid version. It's just how people
watch TV. We watch shows. We watch 30/150 available channels. Occasionally we
just watch "what's on". Cable companies realize this and though it is not
necessarily costing them more to provide content, they're losing potential
money from overpriced cable so now they're looking on hiking the prices of
content available and soon Hulu will be just as expensive as cable and we'll
have to resort to illegal watching until an alternative comes out again.

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wmf
I considered buying an OTA DVR, but then I discovered that there's _one_ model
on the market and it's $350. Hello Hulu!

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kenjackson
If you have Windows Vista/7, it's built in. Just get an OTA tuner card -- USB
HD OTA tuner cards go for $100 if not cheaper.

It's the best DVR on the planet, bar none. Just not very popular as people
don't think of using their computer as a DVR.

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jolan
Or grab a networked tuner like the HDHomeRun. It does OTA and unencrypted
cable. Watching 1080i over 802.11n works well.

There's also DVRs for Linux like XBMC/MythTV and a couple for Mac too.

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kenjackson
I didn't realize the HDHR now had two tuners at $149. Good deal. Also looked
up an internal OTA tuner card. Only $59... see
<http://store.hauppauge.com/hardware2.asp?product=hvr1150>

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billybob
Problem is, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. If they cripple Hulu
because its popularity is threatening traditional TV, people aren't going to
forget that it existed. They _like_ watching via the web. The question is
whether the networks want to provide the content or let someone else do it.

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Retric
The thing is they still treat Hulu like it's cable / network TV with a
crippled DVR. The most recent 2-4 episodes for a lot of content, and they
randomly drop episodes with little warning.

Granted, I watch a lot of Hulu content, but mostly it's amine that's not on
cable TV. I also have a full cable TV subscription (HBO etc) even though I
watch vary little content. I would pay 100+$ a month to watch Hulu without
commercials and an extra 100+$ a month to add the missing cable content.
Technically there is nothing preventing them from making a lot of money off
me, but instead they added a pointless hulu+ subscription which literally
added less than 6 hours of content I have any interest in seeing.

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hugh3
_I would pay 100+$ a month to watch Hulu without commercials and an extra
100+$ a month to add the missing cable content._

You'd pay more than two hundred bucks a month just to watch TV? That seems
like a lot.

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Retric
My FIOS bill is just over 200$ a month for TV + 35/35 mbps internet and most
channels have commercials.

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hugh3
Yeek. I pay $45 a month for internet and... nothing for TV.

Well, I pay $15 a month for Netflix and that ensures that there's always
something I can watch when I feel like watching something.

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Retric
Well I do have a roommate so I am only really spending 40$ a month more than
you. Anyway, compared to our 3+k/month rent it's just not that important IMO.

PS: First time I saw a 200+$/month electric bill we had a chat about running
so many servers ;-)

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zcksjdn
Right now consumers who watch regular TV have to either set aside time to
watch the shows they want or DVR them. They get to pay for and watch a lot of
commercials for this privilege. Meanwhile consumers who watch TV shows on Hulu
can watch current episodes, and often previous ones they may have missed for
free, with only a few minutes of commercials per episode. They have the option
of paying(a lot less) for more previous episodes and even whole series. There
will always be the people who don't want to/wont pay for anything.

To me it seems like the best deal for consumers is Hulu. If Cable networks
focused more on making shows people really like to watch, plus things that
require live viewing and also invested more into infrastructure to deliver
content to consumers in more than one convenient way, everyone wins. The
networks may even be able to get some of the people who generally only
download content to use their legitimate channels of distribution if they make
it easier.

On top of all of that, if they would offer this service in non US areas, the
amount of eyes on their shows, ads and even people willing to pay would be
enormous.

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stuartjmoore
"Technology is changing so fast, and, as a direct result, so is consumers'
behavior," said Jordan Levin, chief executive of the TV and Internet studio
Generate. "One of Hulu's problems was that it accelerated changes in behavior
faster than the companies were prepared for."

Hulu didn't change behavior, people were watching TV online long before, now
they're just doing it legally.

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kalak451
Some people were watching TV online before, now lots of people are watching TV
online. Hulu has played a big part in that. I suspect the number of people
watching Hulu every week dwarfs the number of people who were "illegally"
watching content online before, at least in the US market. Most of the rest of
the world is still forced to find extra-legal methods to obtain the same
content.

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cracell
So why not add more ads to Hulu and make it bring in as much money as
traditional channels? I don't mind ads and let those that do mind them pay to
skip them.

The issue with normal television is that I may not want to or be able to watch
that show at 8pm. And there's no technical reason anymore that I have to. So
why not give consumers a legal and profitable for the content owners option to
consume shows whenever they want?

I just don't comprehend their thinking.

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ja2ke
As the article says, when the content comes to you via traditional TV, there's
more money going on there than "more ads," including content and broadcast
licensing agreements which bring in additional revenue.

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fragsworth
Their subscription only lets you watch the latest season. However, many shows
are stories that are best watched in order from the first episode.

Instead, they should provide the first episodes of every show for free, and
_all seasons_ get unlocked by the monthly subscription.

I would pay upwards of $50/month for that. Far be it from me to give them
business advice, though. I'm sure they have much smarter people figuring this
shit out for them.

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calloc
This is why NetFlix with Hulu+ is a godsend. NetFlix generally has the back
catalogue and Hulu+ has the latest season that NetFlix doesn't have yet.

I stream all of my TV from NetFlix and Hulu, I technically pay for cable
because I pay for cable internet, but it is only the basic package. I don't
have a TV hooked up to Coax at all...

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Gaussian
At some point, Comcast and its buddies are going to be felled by somebody,
somewhere who figures out how to offer premium content a la carte. It's hard
for Hulu to do that now because they don't want to upset the cable people, but
if they hang around and keep growing, they may get their shot. And when they
do, it's a win for consumers because great content will be rewarded (consumed)
and bad content will die much quicker than it does now.

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officemonkey
Apple iTunes sells episodes of many TV shoes the very next day, without
commercials.

There is no way I will ever spend $70/month for cable, but I would happily
spend $70/month for Netflix + Hulu + iTunes because timeshifting is that
important to me.

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hugh3
Yeah, I'm happy to pay $30 a season for Mad Men, since that's the only show
I'd be watching on cable anyway.

Well, that plus Doctor Who. Is there any legal way I can legally get Doctor
Who without shelling out a thousand bucks a year to Comcast for a million
hours of other shite I don't want?

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officemonkey
Well, there's Netflix: <http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Doctor_Who/70142441>

Do you mean brand-new episodes? I suppose you could go to the BBC site
(<http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw>) and fake a UK HTTP header.

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duke_sam
I think the networks are missing the point, the alternative to Hulu and other
online offerings isn't cable or satellite it's P2P. Hulu allows them to get
_some_ money from people who otherwise would be worthless to them.

Paying $2 per episode on amazon or iTunes for a show you are only going to
watch once makes very little sense as does paying $60+ for a cable
subscription (assuming the content you want to watch is not HBO etc.) if you
only want to watch a couple of shows.

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calloc
I like many people here am a tech geek, as such if Hulu started charging a
whole lot more than they currently do, or if shows start being delayed, I have
no trouble going back to an RSS feed from eztv.it.

Commercials don't sway me in any way shape or form, I don't buy a product
because I saw a commercial, I tend to go for bargain brands anyway, so
ultimately nothing is lost by me downloading something over bittorrent rather
than watching it on TV or on Hulu.

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archgoon
Hi, I am somewhat interested in the latimes naming convention for their pages.
For this story, the part before the date is:

la-fi-ct-hulu

la, and fi are rather self explanatory, but the 'ct' I can't account for, and
am wondering if perhaps some editor tossed this in as an in-joke. Anyone know
what 'ct' stands for? Additional classification of article as 'consumer
techonology'?

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schwanksta
I think it stands for Company Town, which is a section of the site/paper
devoted to covering "the industry."

Actually, I'm almost certain that's it.

