The Inquisitr » hulu

A Free Idea For The Movie Industry

Kyle Brady — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:12:03 +0000

Netflix, despite the protestations of movie studios, has done wonders for the industry, resulting in millions of Americans that now watch DVDs on a regular basis who would otherwise probably watch whatever made-for-TV movie was on AMC; however, this revolution has been limited almost strictly to DVD delivery, unless you have a penchant for weird (or old) movies.

Hulu, the television networks’ answer to the Internet, has also flourished, but with an entirely different model: rather than paying a monthly fee for unlimited access, Hulu provides unlimited access to both fresh and archive content in exchange for some pretty hilarious, and comparatively short, commercials. There has admittedly been some network pushback, because Hulu is becoming a victim of its own success – as more people use Hulu, the actual television viewers continue to drop, and networks don’t get the big-ticket revenue they typically could have expected.

But, at the end of the day, both industries have come to realize that they need to adapt, and quickly, in order to survive in any recognizable fashion. TV networks are toying with the idea of different delivery models via Hulu, such as “all content, always” and “only the most recent episodes”, but they’re trying.

Movie studios, however, are not.

Hulu was a joint-venture by industry giants, and was only a success because it was given true independence and freedom – it’s not a service that can likely be replicated by the movie industry, especially since Hulu appears to have somehow gained the love and support of nerds that is a prerequisite for Internet-based success. It is for this very reason that the movie industry should embrace a twofold online-delivery approach: Hulu and Netflix.

Out of a $10 (USD) movie ticket, the studios receive a portion of sales, as well as a fee for the theater actually showing the film – this is an unsustainable model in the modern world of other, cheaper options. If studios could receive $5 per online viewing of new movies, with a larger audience, would they not be happy to comply? The theory is simple: allow Hulu to show New Release movies as soon as they appear in theaters, with a pre-roll ad that results in the needed income-per-viewer, which is honestly no different or more annoying than the twenty minutes of previews and ads moviegoers are currently subjected to.

Furthermore, Netflix’s mass-audience should be leveraged to their providers’ streaming benefit, either through a similar pre-roll advertising model or with an extra monthly subscriber fee to allow Netflix members access to the New Release content via streaming, much like paying for a movie channel on a cable TV plan – but is actually useful.

The music industry was forced to adapt, much to their undying hatred, and they have suffered greatly for it – this is why they continue to try to restrict listeners’ rights while also increasing profits. If the movie studios choose to adapt, much as television networks have been halfheartedly attempting to, they could fare far better in the end than they do even now. The pay-per-stream movie distribution idea, through iTunes or Amazon, was a valiant attempt but has proven to not be of interest to most consumers, likely because of its expense and DRM-related difficulties.

FOX, Lionsgate, and all the others: this idea was free. The next one will cost seven figures – the check can be made out to “Kyle ‘Awesomeguy’ Brady”.

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction. He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

Myka ION HD Player Provides Hulu And Boxee Access In A Nice Package

James Allen Johnson — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:27:10 +0000

The Myka ION HD player as the name would suggest provides NVIDIA ION graphics with Hulu and Boxee support all from one centralized location. The device also provides PC application support for XBMC and other options and provides the ability to “browse to any web site and play video content directly onto your TV.”

The base model starts at $379 with basic WiFi access, while Wireless-N and Blu-ray add-ons can quickly run the system price up to $644.

The systems regardless of model include a 1.6GHz dual-core Atom 330 CPU processor, while up to 4GB RAM and ten USB 2.0 ports are available. Video out options are also abundant in the form of VGA / DVI and HDMI with an eSATA connector, Ethernet and a bunch of useful audio outputs. [SlipperyBrick]

Everyone, blow kisses and say goodnight to free Hulu!

Kim LaCapria — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:11:38 +0000

News Corp Deputy Chairman Chase Carey told press that the service won’t be free anymore starting as soon as 2010. (That’s in two months, people!)

Carey told reporters that Hulu was likely to become a subscription service, although it’s not clear how the video-streaming site plans to lure users who have been using it for free all along. Over on Twitter, many irritated fans say they would consider paying for the service if ads were cut, but I’d think such a significant change would have been worth a mention by Carey when he broke the news to reporters. Carey merely said:

“I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value.”

Of course, as Hulu has been a “free model” all along, it seems like a tough row to hoe trying to charge for it now. If the only additional access in this scenario is between Hulu and your wallet, customers are likely to just get their content through other means. However, going by other companies who’ve decided to charge for content suddenly with no added benefit (such as Newsday hallucinating that people will pay $20 a month to read about pumpkin picking and car wrecks on Long Island), it’s not that much of a stretch to believe that Hulu is suffering from the same delusions of grandeur. Which is a shame, because everyone I know who uses Hulu regularly adores it.

Disney CEO on crack for suggesting Hulu charge for access

Steven Hodson — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:55:00 +0000

With all due respect to people like Svetlana Gladkova over at Profy.com anyone who thinks that at this point in time Hulu should start charging for access to its content should stop what they are doing right now and give themselves a good solid facepalm. Please tell me where it makes sense for anyone to pay extra per month for what they are already paying for in their homes as the majority of people who this idea would effect already have cable television.

Cable TV with exactly the same content as what you find on Hulu with the exception of maybe a few movies that will end up there anyway on some superstation of movie channel – how is this any great improvement. It is especially dumb when you factor in the reality that in the US broadband providers are moving to having download caps against which all this streaming video would count against.

Stupidly Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger said at a conference

"There’s plenty of room for people to spend money on things they’re doing online," Iger told a technology conference put on by Fortune magazine.

Source: Yahoo News – Disney CEO: Hulu could charge for content

Sure people are willing to pay for things on the web and yes people are easily conned into believing that maybe paying for Hulu is a good thing but that doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea. I like buying stuff on the web but I can tell you this – even if making Hulu (or a part of it) a pay access service allowed for its content to be shown in Canada I still wouldn’t sign up.

I already pay an outrageous sum for cable TV and Internet access so why am I going to pay again for the same things I’ve already forked money over for – it makes no sense whatsoever. As well the idea that by making Hulu a pay service will open it up to international users – think again. Even though Svetlana might like the idea

Yet revolt or no revolt, I know one category of users (and a very broad one at that) who will only welcome the decision to let them pay for a subscription in exchange for content – if they are granted this opportunity at all. I am obviously talking about international users here. Hulu is only available to the internet users who visit the website from a US IP-address while everyone else will be able to browse the site but will not be able to watch any piece of content at all.

The fact is that it won’t happen because it isn’t something that charging users for will change the current US only service. This is because of international copyrights and broadcast laws – it has nothing to do with throwing money at it. For all we know Hulu would love nothing better that to be able to stream content to Canada or Russia but it isn’t just the US entertainment industry owners of Hulu that are the bottleneck.

For that you have top look at the individual countries. Just as Canada will not allow US television signals to cross the broader and be played on Canadian television they won’t allow video stream to cross those same borders. So we can rant all we want at Hulu and their evil overlords it doesn’t change the fact that if Hulu starts charging for access it won’t make one bit of difference outside of its borders.

Joost gives up the ghost, goes white label

Duncan Riley — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:06:37 +0000

Joost has announced that it is abandoning ad supported streaming video and is repositioning itself as a white label video provider.

The company cited the economy as the decision behind the move, saying in a post that “it’s been increasingly challenging to operate as an independent, ad-supported online video platform.” It’s not clear when they’ll cut access to their existing database of on demand video, but at the time of writing videos were still available on the site.

The new Joost will offer its underlying video technology to other companies on a fee base, a risky move given the large number of other companies currently offering these services.

This is the third business reincarnation for Joost, who originally started as a P2P software based video service at a time online streaming video was becoming popular. Their second incarnation as a Hulu like service faltered due to Joost originally forcing users to log into the site to view videos, and a shallow range of content.

Notably their tech is anything but first class today; for example, I just tried to view a Michael Jackson video on the site and it took a solid 10-15 seconds before the video started playing, and experience I’ve always had with Joost. On YouTube and similar sites, videos start playing in seconds, if not immediately. How they’re going to offer an appealing white label service out of second class playback tech is beyond me. My prediction: Joost won’t last the year.

Joost

Hulu for PS3: Denied

Kim LaCapria — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:59:12 +0000

“Unfortunately, this video is not available on your platform. We apologize for any inconvenience.” Burn.

Sometime this weekend, Playstation 3 owners began reporting inability to access Hulu through the device, and receiving the above message. Hulu was kind of all huhwha? about the whole thing, but Engadget reports that Hulu terms of service were updated on June 26th. While it was initially speculated the issues could be connected to a recent firmware update, altering a browser’s user-string that way indicates the PS3 was specifically blocked by Hulu.

But why, Hulu? Why you gotta be like that?

Way back in March, Hulu blocked the hell out of Boxee, citing consumer convenience bitching content providers. Since then, it’s been an on/off thing, spawning this Twitter feed:

While Hulu can’t bite the content-providing hand that feeds it, it’s extremely counterintuitive to provide such a service just to add arbitrary blocks making it inconvenient to use. And as Hulu hasn’t given a reason for the new lockdown, we can only speculate as to why the PS3 was selected for this round of “no content for you!”

IT World presents two theories on the matter. Theory #1- quit bringing the content to your TVs, damnit! If you’re gonna watch Hulu, it’s gonna be on your smudgy little laptop screen or not at all! (Because no one can hook computers up to TVs, that’s just crazytalk?) Theory #2- Hulu’s coming to the XBox 360, and Microsoft paid Hulu to cut off competition.

Whatever the reason is behind this latest round of early-adopter jerking-around, it’s just another example of short-sightedness regarding a changing marketplace. The same consumers that use services like Hulu are likely the ones who are already aware of how to implement a work around, like PlayOn. So they’re not really stopping anything, just pissing everyone off.

Another who cares Hulu post – this time get your wallet ready

Steven Hodson — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:22:10 +0000

Over the last couple of days I’ve been seeing a couple of posts showing up suggesting that people get ready to open their wallets soon if they want to keep using Hulu. Now for the rest of the world this won’t matter one bit because well besides the US and soon (as of September) the UK no-one else can use the service because it’s geotarded.

That hasn’t stop the newly installed head honcho of News Corp, one of the players involved with Hulu, Mr. Jonathan Miller from suggesting that he envisions a time where at least some of the TV shows and movies would only be available through subscription.

Miller, whose last job was running AOL (parent of Daily Finance), prefaced his remark by noting that he won’t attend his first Hulu board meeting until Monday, so the scenario he foresees is merely his own speculation. But, he continued, "in my opinion the answer could be yes. I don’t see why over time that shouldn’t happen. I don’t think it’s on the agenda for Monday [but] it seems to me that over time that could be a logical thing."

Source: Daily Finance

Now the angst over his statement hasn’t really started rolling through the tech blogosphere because everyone is still sucking up to the the Twitter teat and since what he had to say was more than a 140 characters I’m not surprised it’s been missed. That will change the moment word hits that Hulu will be seriously going down that road – which it will.

The only thing I can say is – what do you expect. Just look at who’s involved here – News Corp (Fox), NBC, ABC and Disney. The only network not involved is CBS and they seem to be the only ones by the way who seem to have a grip on how this new medium works and doing a good job at it.

Unfortunately though when Hulu starts dipping into your wallet most of the world won’t even care but that is what happens when you lock us out. So enjoy your free Hulu while it last.

Who cares what Hulu is doing…

Steven Hodson — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:47:43 +0000

I’ve been watching the fuss being made over the fact that Hulu has decided to come out with a desktop application and the best I can come up with is a great big *YAWN* – who cares. After none of this changes the fact that Hulu is only available in the United States, and soon England. However Sean P. Aune over at StarterTech raised a point that seems to surface a lot these days.

He questioned why anyone would want to come out with a desktop application for a web based service, such as Hulu, when the market for such an application is in his opinion negligible

We say “unexpected” because it really only improves the viewing experience of the service for a very small percentage of users. If you have a Windows Media Center PC or a Mac, you can hook them up to your TV and then use the remote control from your computer to control the browsing of the service from anywhere else in the room that you want. While this is a nice idea, it still requires your computer to be hooked up to your TV, which means it has to be in physical proximity to your television set.

Sorry Sean, but not everyone wants to do everything out of a browser. In some cases having a desktop application for a service is preferable, just look at the popularity of desktop Twitter clients. Sure that market might be shifting but being able to corner a market such a Hulu wants to do means you need to cover all your bases. Do you think that Twitter would be as popular today as it is without those desktop clients? I don’t.

So even though the geotarding crap that Hulu and their entertainment industry masters enforce on us is a major irritation and the biggest holdback to their success I think it’s a good thing that they’ve gone this extra step. I know that if I could use Hulu I’d be downloading their desktop client right now, but I can’t so again *YAWN*

Hulu to release the UK from geotarding hell – how about the rest of the world?

Steven Hodson — Wed, 20 May 2009 22:08:03 +0000

I totally get that this whole geotarding thing can’t be placed directly at the feet of companies like Hulu and Pandora. I understand that they are having to play nice with rights holders around the world and some of them just don’t want to play nice at all. So it was good to hear today that Hulu looks to be cutting deals with all the players involved in television broadcasting in the UK and hopefully by September those lucky sods in the UK will be able to enjoy a great service.

However this still begs the question – what about the rest of us poor saps who will still find ourselves stuck behind the geotarding wall?

What really gets me riled up is that services like Hulu and Pandora don’t explain in plain English and not some legalese doubletalk as to why the rest of the world can’t use the service. We saw the same thing when Skype said that their App Store application for the iPhone would, or would not, be available in Canada but with limitations, like being able to make outgoing calls over VoIP. The strange part of this is that we can use Skype in Canada on our computers and buy Skype minutes with Canadian dollars.

All we got from Skype was that it was due to patent problems. This is slightly more than we get from Hulu or Pandora, who say it’s because they couldn’t come to copyright agreements. Well you know what? this is all pure and unadulterated bullshit.

We are supposed to be in an era where social media is the great equalizer but it seems sometimes that when it come to issues that cause companies to have to ‘legitimately’ geotard their products the power of social media gets forgotten. Much of the argument around the reasons for geotarding revolves around copyright issues or problems being able to target advertising properly. Well the second issue is just plain stupid and really shouldn’t even be a consideration.

The first though is something that can be changed – if the companies were honest with us as to exactly why they are having to geotard a country; or countries. Say for example the problem with Hulu being able to open up to Canada is due to the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Telecommunication Commission) then tell us that. Or perhaps it’s because the monopolizing television and cable broadcasters are the ones causing the problems then tell us that.

Then bring the so-called power of social media to bear on the problem. Don’t hide behind neatly couched legalese. Call on the people – because I would bet dollars to donuts that if we knew exactly what the problem was there we would be able bring what pressure we can to see changes are made – or at least try our damndest.

Instead we are treated like mindless consumers with no voice in finding solutions to the problems which says a lot about what companies really think about this whole social media thing.

[picture courtesy of Telegraph Online because I live and Canada and wouldn’t be able to get a screenshot of a show playing on Hulu.]

Is Hulu behind the big piracy drop in the United States?

Duncan Riley — Wed, 13 May 2009 02:36:04 +0000

New figures released from anti-piracy group BayTSP show that the United States dropped from 1st to 4th place in 2008 in their annual list of copyright infringements by country.

The figures offered by BayTSP though don’t calculate actual piracy penetration, at least in those published at TorrentFreak (the report isn’t available on BayTSP’s site.) In the chart above, there were 8.116 million recorded infringements in the United States, but the notable thing about the list is that every other country on it has significantly smaller populations. For example, if the rate of piracy in the United States per head of population was applied to the population of Spain, the number of infringements (based as a percentage of population) would be 1.08 million vs Spain’s 24.75m. That is to say that piracy in Spain is roughly 24x more common than piracy in the United States. Per head of population, the United States wouldn’t make the top 10.

There are some problems though with the stats: we simply don’t know how these raw figures came about, so there may be a distortion in reporting, that is that piracy in Spain could be better tracked and counted vs the United States. Second: I find it difficult to believe the United States figure: was there really only 8 million downloads from a population of over 300 million?

We can though take it that the 2007 and 2008 stats were recorded the same way, so counting aside what we do know is that piracy is rapidly heading downwards in the United States. The big question is why? Why is piracy heading down at a time that the act of piracy has never been easier and more accessible?

Could it be that the 42 million videos served by Hulu in March, a number that has for the most part continued to grow over the last 12 months on a month to month basis, has a direct correlation with the decline in piracy rates in the United States?

We know it’s not the RIAA/ MPAA anti-piracy measures, with even the RIAA (mostly) giving up on taking downloaders to court. Even they could see that the strategy doesn’t work.

Instead, we have a response from big media that created supply where there was demand, supply that in part negated the need to download pirated content.

Although we’d need more quantitative data to prove a direct correlation decisively, I’m going to say Yes: Hulu is the main driver of the drop in piracy in the United States. Notably it’s not the only driver, but likewise it has driven legal content provision from the likes of CBS and other content providers as well on other sites.

That conclusion has big implications for the media industry world wide. There is now a proven way to combat piracy, but it’s one that involves the free supply of content, a model that for the most part has yet to be seriously embraced outside of the United States (there are some part exemptions, UK and Australia have some options.) Piracy is now proven in part to be driven by demand not met by legal supply, so will more companies world wide embrace the workable solution?

Hulu goes International … well sort of

Steven Hodson — Fri, 08 May 2009 02:54:34 +0000

Hulu is a great service that allows you to watch all the cool television shows that all the networks with the exception of CBS decides they want you to see. There is only one problem with Hulu. If you don’t live in the US you’re shit out of luck because the networks who control what Hulu does says you can’t mainly because they can’t figure out how to advertize against it outside of the States. some will suggest that it is more of a copyright problem, which it is to a certain extent but in the end it’s all about the money – and control.

Now we hear though that miracles of miracles Hulu is starting to cut some deals with International television networks and movie companies. Of course the first thought is that finally we will be able to say goodbye to the stupid geotarding of shows we can watch. Visions of being able to watch some good quality television on the web begins to fill our thoughts.

Except for one thing.

The deals being cut from the sound of things is only for content that will be shown in the US on Hulu. So geotarding lives folks. There is no mention in the reports I have seen that these deals being inked mean that Hulu will start being available outside of the US. All we hear is how US audiences will now be able to see shows that they haven’t been able to up until these incredible deals being made.

In most cases, the launch of the programmes on Hulu will be the first time they have been seen by a US audience, with the advertising on the site generating a new revenue stream for the producers. “You have these hidden gems [like Green Wing] which the US audience just hasn’t seen before,” said Mr Forssell.

Source: FT.com

Guess these guys haven’t heard of BitTorrent or binary newsgroups, and they bitch about piracy.

I’m surprised it took so long: Hulu blocks Hotspot Shield users

Duncan Riley — Thu, 07 May 2009 01:32:20 +0000

Hotspot Shield, the most popular free way to access Hulu outside of the United States has finally been blocked.

Hotspot Shield is a free VPN (virtual private network) service that allows users to visit sites as if they were in the United States. It has been, since shortly after Hulu was launched, the most popular solution to bypassing Hulu’s georetardation of content.

The strange part is why has the ban come now? Many wrote about this as a solution as far back as 2007. Hotspot Shield’s popularity as a solution to accessing Hulu has actually decreased in recent times, as streaming sites that host pirated content have become widely available, offering easier and quicker access to the content Hulu offers.

NewTeeVee has a list of Hotspot Shield alternatives in their post on the ban here.

Why the rest of us couldn’t care less if Hulu is pulled from Boxee

Steven Hodson — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 01:40:07 +0000

I finally have had a chance to play around with Boxee and it sure seems to be a great way to watch video content on your television screen or computer monitor. The social aspect of it all; like most things social related these days could be a real winner for the service. On the whole it looked like Boxee had a winning formula on its hands until US viewers were informed of a big change in Boxee’s line-up of providers.

You see the majority of Boxee’s television related programming comes via the hottest video property on the web right now – Hulu. The thing is that Hulu itself is really just a content provider that has agreements with the various television networks to provide their shows via the Hulu player on the web. So what you had was one content provider providing it’s content to yet another video content provider who didn’t have any agreements in place with either Hulu or Hulu’s video providers.

As confusing as this sounds it gets even worse when the originating video providers told Hulu to stop making the content available via Boxee. This pretty well took the majority of Boxee’s content right out of play. Of course there was some uproar when happened but not as much as you would think. The reason for this is because to countries outside of the US Hulu is a non-player in the global video market.

So when Boxee announced that they would be pulling all Hulu provided content from the comments may have lit up from angry Americans but garnered nothing but a big yawn from the rest of the world. This of course is due to Hulu’s geotarding of its content so that it can only be viewed by US residents. This geotarding of course carried over to Hulu content played through Boxee so not only did non Americans lose out so did Boxee because all the really good content came primarily from its Hulu connection.

This problem isn’t the fault of either Boxee or Hulu but that of television networks who still haven’t gotten a clue about how this new fangled thing called the Internet works.

Hulu cuts off Boxee, Old Media takes one step forward, two steps back

Duncan Riley — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 23:39:35 +0000

Users of the growingly popular Boxee media platform will no longer have access to Hulu, after the Fox/ NBC JV decided that letting people watch programs for free where they want wasn’t part of the game plan.

Hulu didn’t elaborate on the reasons behind the move, saying only in a post that

Our content providers requested that we turn off access to our content via the Boxee product, and we are respecting their wishes. While we stubbornly believe in this brave new world of media convergence — bumps and all — we are also steadfast in our belief that the best way to achieve our ambitious, never-ending mission of making media easier for users is to work hand in hand with content owners. Without their content, none of what Hulu does would be possible, including providing you content via Hulu.com and our many distribution partner websites.

The real reason though comes back to the threat Boxee represents. In a tight market where cable subscriptions are heading down and TV networks are bleeding advertisers, services such as Boxee offer TV or cable like convenience without the same costs, and likewise the revenue streams expected by old media. Boxee was too much of a substitute for Fox and NBC to handle, and in taking one step forward with Hulu itself, and now taking two steps back by locking up that content by restricting where it can be played.

The net result is easy to predict. More piracy of content, and NBC and Fox lose even more. A short sighted decision from myopic media companies.

Hulu Geopricks in the New Year

Duncan Riley — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 05:06:29 +0000

As the new year rolls cross the world, online video provider Hulu has been up to its usual tricks again, this time blocking viewers outside the United States from watching a live feed of New Years Eve from New York.

While usually Hulu blocking viewers wouldn’t constitute a story, this time they’ve been caught lying about the reasons as well.

The live stream not only isn’t georetarded by the provider (The Times Square Alliance), it’s also provided for free to any broadcaster in the world to play anywhere on a non-exclusive basis. The terms of use are on the website here. The very same stream appears on services such as Earthcam and Mogulus without being blocked.

Hulu instead gives users its standard set of excuses: our video library is not available outside the United States, with a link to a statement on achieving international rights “requires clearing the rights for each show or film in each specific geography.” The thing in this case: the rights are clearly international, so the decision was made by Hulu not for legal reasons.

This doesn’t really count as georetardation either; georetarded content is content blocked by geography due to restrictions from rights holders. The rights holders aren’t the ones doing this, Hulu are, so I’m calling it an act of geoprickery. The alternative is to call them Geoc&*ts, but that might upset a few people, even if it’s entirely accurate.

Happy New Year Hulu, and here’s hoping 2009 completely sucks for you.

The Music Industry thinks it can create a Hulu for Music Videos

Duncan Riley — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 23:25:01 +0000

Fresh from the news that Warner Music and YouTube are no longer playing nicely together comes new rumors that the music industry ~~cartel~~ are talking about creating a Hulu for music videos.

According to a source quoted at Silicon Alley Insider, Sony BMG, EMI, and Universal Music Group all think they could do better creating their own music video Web destinations and are in early talks about forming a joint venture similar in concept to Hulu.

It would be easy to label the joint venture a joke before it starts, but Hulu did prove one thing: even previously clueless media companies can occasionally get it right. Having said that though, the obvious question is where is the money coming from? The vast majority (actually pretty much all) of the revenue made by music companies on YouTube came from royalty payments from licensing deals with YouTube itself, with peanuts coming from advertising served against the videos. Unlike content on Hulu, music videos are short play, and while users might happily sit through a 30 second pre-roll (or longer: Hulu allows users to opt for longer pre-rolls for no ads during the show) for a 30 or 60 minute show, users won’t be too happy about sitting through a 30 second commercial to play a 2 or 3 minute music video.

There’s then the question of audience: YouTube’s licensing deals extended to songs played over user generated content, where as this service would presumably focus on music video alone, and while there would undoubtedly be demand for such clips, it wouldn’t be anywhere close to the demand for television shows by comparison. Scale is the key, and I can’t help but think that this venture, cut off from mainstream services would struggle to find it.

Two-Minute Preroll Ads: The Future of Online Video?

JR — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:37:27 +0000

You may soon start seeing some pretty long preroll ads popping up in online video, if new research by Hulu is taken to heart.

The online video network found 88 percent of its visitors prefer to see a two-minute ad before a video than to see four 30-second ads spread throughout the video. The finding is specific to 22-minute programs.

“The opt-in rate is proving this is something people want,” Hulu spokesperson Christina Lee tells AdAge. “We are trying to break down a lot of these very traditional ways of thinking about advertising,” she adds.

Hulu is also experimenting with letting users select the type of ad they see — something it believes increases engagement.

We suspect it may just increase trips to the kitchen to make a snack. But hey, whatever they want to believe.

(Via Silicon Alley Insider)

Hulu

MGM TV and Movie content coming to YouTube

Duncan Riley — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:55:35 +0000

Full length movies and television shows from MGM are coming to YouTube.

In an agreement due to be announced Monday, YouTube will start showing free ad supported episodes of American Gladiators, full-length films including Bulletproof Monk and The Magnificent Seven, and clips from popular movies like Legally Blonde.

The New York Times notes that the content being provided isn’t compelling, but it’s an important step for YouTube at a time Hulu is quickly becoming the main destination for major studio content in the United States.

YouTube has previously signed deals with Lionsgate and CBS, with the latter posting full length episodes of Star Trek and Beverly Hills 90210.

Under the deal, MGM will also work with YouTube in keeping copyright infringing materials from MGM’s catalog online but supported by advertising.

Hulu drops georetardation on SNL clips, still blocking others freely available

Duncan Riley — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 03:37:30 +0000

Hulu has quietly dropped its uniform georetardation polices following our post highlighting the absurdity of their position October 6.

Until now, all clips on Hulu have been uniformly unavailable outside of the United States. For the first time this isn’t the case, with clips from Saturday Night Live now available to anyone visiting the sites, or watching them embedded elsewhere. The clips do have a small bug: the 30 second pre-rolls don’t play, and instead users have to sit through 30 seconds of nothing, but it’s at least a start.

While we welcome the move by Hulu to start making available content outside of the United States where it is freely and legally available elsewhere, the gesture seems a little shallow given they’ve only lifted the block on Saturday Night Live clips. Clips freely available from other shows, including Colbert, John Stewart, and a range of clips from the Presidential Debates are still blocked. They’ve even got all the shows from The Onion blocked (which are freely available in full EVERYWHERE) so it’s not as if they’re dealing with big media companies alone with this issue.

Lets make it easy for Hulu with a general rule: clips from shows, including big networks, are usually available everywhere online, full shows aren’t, because the rights issue comes into play with full shows sold in overseas territories, not 2 or 3 minute clips. This even applies for made for television shows: for example, I was a big fan of Jericho, and I regularly watched clips on the CBS site, including 5 minutes of the next episode teasers. The only thing I was ever blocked on was the ability to watch the whole show, because rights to the show had been sold to stations outside the United States, and those networks usually get the rights to online viewing as well, within each country.

Slightly less an EPIC FAIL, more now a throw the dog a bone and think he wont notice the rest FAIL.

YouTube vs Hulu: Game On

Duncan Riley — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 01:39:02 +0000

YouTube is to start offering full length television shows in a direct challenge to the NBC/ News owned Hulu.

The initial roll out will include shows from CBS, including The Young and the Restless, 90210, Dexter and Californication. The Wall Street Journal reported YouTube saying it is in discussions with other media partners.

The lineup isn’t huge, as Adam Ostrow points out, but it’s a first step into legal free television streaming, a space currently dominated by Hulu. YouTube is the 1000 pound gorilla in the room, and should it be successful in signing more content partners, and is capable of finding advertising for that content, the Hulu team will be sleeping a little less well tonight, and in the months to come.

For viewers, it will offer real, presumably high quality content on a site they use. How they’ll accept pre, mid and post rolls though is still to be seen. We’re also going to presume that the content made available in this deal will be georetarded, so the good news is only for readers in the United States.