Nice write up by Claire Atkinson at Broadcasting & Cable:
So more focus will now fall on CBS, both as the lone Hulu holdout among the big four networks and because of the $1.8 billion it paid for CNET.
“My guess is that CBS is going to feel their digital strategy needs to deliver this year because of their CNET acquisitions,” says Dennis Miller, general partner at venture capital firm Spark Capital. “Their individuals are going to be under pressure. We’re just in the first inning of what’s going to be relatively long game.”
CBS, which has held on-again, off-again talks to become part of Hulu, issued a statement following the Disney announcement maintaining its commitment to pursuing its own non-exclusive content partnerships.
[...]
CBS may ultimately become a partner, but it has other reasons for maintaining a distance; the desire to make cable operators pay for retransmission of CBS network. One executive with knowledge of talks said, “The money is with retrans today. The question is what’s the value of what’s going on with online video. Retrans is very much top of mind.”
[...]
Spark Capital’s Miller says, “Hulu has both surprised and disappointed at the same time.” He gives it credit for growing the brand and becoming the “first viable portal of professional content.” But, he adds, “The commercial load and not selling out their inventory has given pause to the studios as to whether it is a sufficiently compelling model to join and proclaim as the market leader.”
thank you i will stay with My tv for shows and Dvr to
I’m surprised Hulu doesn’t have more commercials. I guess they’re holding out until they gain enough mindshare, kind of like how YouTube didn’t have ads for a while (remember those days?).
It is unsettling how many ads on Hulu are of the “public service announcement” type, however, which makes me suspect they’re having trouble selling ad space. Plus Hampton must be getting a killer deal to want to run the same two ads over and over again for Arrested Development videos.
Mike, apparently Hulu can’t even sell all of its available inventory with the limited commercial interruptions. that could have more to do with its not adding more spots than mind share issues.
I think CBS will try to stick with tv.com CBS has a habit of bucking the trend and I’m sure that they believe that people will watch their shows where ever they can.
>>> I’m surprised Hulu doesn’t have more commercials
Half of the commercials I see on there are PSAs.
The other half seem to be Coke commercials.
From NewTeevee.
“Another take was offered by Forrester analyst James McQuivey to CNET (which is owned by CBS): Hulu could actually provide more than a blueprint for cable companies’ own premium video services; it could manage their online content relationships and distribution for them.
“Comcast can tell NBC and News Corp, we want to put your Hulu system in front of our subscribers,” McQuivey said. “But we want to give our customers more. If Hulu is posting four episodes of a show online we want our subscribers to have 12 episodes. I’m 90 percent certain sure these conversations are already happening.”
This is just pure brilliance, offer Hulu+ as a international cable channel like CNN and the rest, make people pay for it through the local cable providers and if you make the content available close enough to the US air dates there you have a potential torrent killer.
Hulu crashes my computer. That has more to do with my computer than Hulu, I’m quite certain. Still, if I really want something, I will get it through a torrent.