

Hulu, a Victim of Its Own Success? - mjfern
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/05/hulu-victim-success/

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pierrefar
No it's a victim of an business model that's not willing to change. If
anything, Hulu should be the evidence every single TV exec should hold up as
the new way works.

Hulu's way may not be the only or best answer of "how does the new way work?"
but it's certainly proof enough that the new way does work and the industry
should start experimenting to find the best solution.

~~~
Retric
The problem cable companies have is their revenue is insane and they are used
to it.

I am canceling Cable TV (with DVR and HDTV) service becasuse it's overpriced
and I have slowly gotten to the point where my TV is on 1-2 hours a week,
which is not worth 80$ a month. The sad thing is I would pay 5$ a hour for
what littel TV I watch, but they don't have anything like that as an option.

When people who makes as much money as I do cancle their service because of
poor value, they must see the end of the road. They don't procude the content,
and while they are the middle men of chioce most people will move on to other
things in time which will reduce their power with the people who create
content. There was a time when TV could clame they where filtering out the
junk which justified their posistion but 300+ channels killed that idea. So I
expect thier only real option is to become an ISP or try and creat the next
Hulu.

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cubedice
Eh, Hulu might be too ahead of the curve. e.g., they may get strangled by
broadcast and cable TV before their (assuming they don't adapt) inevitable
death.

I heard this on NPR yesterday
-[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1040594...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104059403)
. It pointed out that DVR is decreasing the value of a Thursday night ad slot,
since if people watch a Thursday night show on Sunday (after the weekend plans
have been made), why should ad execs pony up for the prime time ads? Obviously
Hulu can play ads during a certain time period, irrespective of shows, so this
doesn't hurt them.

Overall, cable and broadcast TV are not sustainable in their current form. My
guess is that they'll eventually go to a la carte style subscriptions at the
last moment to avoid completely going under, and not a moment sooner.

~~~
rgoddard
Offering video on the web opens up so many more options then the current
methods, and many more revenue models. As you mentioned, the ads can be
updated to be the most current since the video is being streamed right then
and there.

On top of that, the networks can easily have more targeted and relevant ads.
They can track all of the shows people are watching, and know exactly how many
people are watching them. There are additional hooks for people to discover
new shows.

You can have different subscription models, with the free version allowing
people to watch only the most current episodes, then being able to pay
additional to see all of the previous episodes and seasons. People can pay to
not have advertising if they want. Plus any other combination or other pricing
models that you can think of can be used.

In exchange for giving up control, they would gain an incredible amount of
flexibility on how the content is priced and used. They are crazy for not
moving ahead with this with the amount of money they could make off of this.

*Edit:Grammar fixes

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dkarl
The "off to the torrents" message doesn't mean much to the industry. They'd
rather have 2x viewers on legal, revenue-generating sites and 5x viewers on
torrents than have 10x users on legal, non-revenue-generating sites. They want
to maximize their paying customers and don't give a damn about non-paying
customers. (Only on the web would this seem naive.)

~~~
jerf
Hulu customers _are_ paying customers, and it _is_ a revenue-generating site.
They watch ads. Now, they aren't anywhere near as much "paying" as someone
watching the same show on a conventional channel (who also pay by watching
ads), but they are not freeloaders, either. Hulu customers could already have
been torrenting, but preferred the Hulu experience, even with ads.

I make no further inferences, other than to point that out. (I would point out
that it doesn't seem feasible to make a show directly for Hulu, for the ad
rates they get, vs. the obvious feasibility of making a show for a
conventional channel.)

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johnbender
As lame as it sounds, I would be supremely happy to be a victim of success
like that

