Robert nailed it yesterday when he cautioned against overreaction to recent remarks about Hulu.com going to a paid model.
A spokesman for Hulu is already "explaining" the recent remarks:
"Hulu's mission has always been to help people find and enjoy the world's premium, professionally produced content," the rep said. "We continue to believe that the ad-supported free service is the one that resonates with the largest group of users and any possible new business models would serve to complement our existing offering. There are no details or timelines to share regarding our future product roadmap."
via MediaWeek.
somebody went off message and now PR has to clean up the mess.
Corey3d, either that or what was revealed wasn’t finalized or supposed to be public. Regardless, PR black eye!
paid model stuff is probably being talked about behind closed doors … they just dont want the public to know about it this early.
they will probably be doing some sort of paid programming sooner or later if they can do it legally. charge for new content but keep older stuff free, maybe.
guess it depends on how it works out … will they keep enough viewers to pay for the site. would have to estimate how much money they would save(bandwidth) after all the people that dont want to pay leaves.
is it worth it to lose all those viewers … I wonder how many people they rope into watching new shows on tv after people find them on Hulu.
A third possibility? This was a trial balloon they sent up about future plans and, when it got blown out of the sky, they decided to backtrack on it, knowing they would have to “explain” their remarks and take the PR black eye (and assess how they might proceed in the future on their plans). Not, admittedly, anything more than a remote possibility but, humans being unpredictable, capricious, and not always gifted with intelligence, one that can’t be fully ruled out.
Nightstar, trial balloon is a possibility, but I can’t imagine they thought the reaction would have been any different than it was.
Neither can I, actually, but sometimes people do something terribly unwise even knowing full well there would be h-e-double hockey sticks to pay for doing it. Again, I do think trial balloon was, at best, a remote explanation for this… you and Corey3rd are probably far closer to the bull’s eye on this one than me… but I just thought to mention it for fun.
I think it’s more this: Hulu the entity (run by Jason Kilar) sometimes has a different perspective on how Hulu should work than the partners who actually own the entity.
Also I think there are certainly cases where there are executives at the partners who own the company who don’t like aspects of Hulu, but they were not involved in the formation of Hulu or the decision making process. That won’t stop them from offering their opinions in a public forum
If it had been a Disney or GE exec saying Hulu will have paid content soon, I would be more concerned. But since it was a News Corp exec, it was probably more just spouting their own party line than anything that has actually been agreed to.
News Corp is on their “pay for our internet content kick” lately.
This story blew up overnight. It was even covered on local radio this morning in Houston.
Well whats to stop them from making a profit. Do I like it no but if it happens it happens.
Why can’t they up their spot-load. Is the ad market really that bad? I’m not for heavy advertising, but they went from OTA 16 mins non-program material to maybe 3 minutes. Some hour-longs only have 5 x :15.
Hulu spots should hopefully have a slightly better CPM since they can’t be bypassed and I would argue someone watching a computer screen is much more engaged than the hope that they’re paying attention to a screen across the room.
Rupert Murdoch is on record as being apoplectic over free anything. He finds the internet to be his personal bete noire. So it’s not surprising this came out of News Corp. Murdoch has made it his personal mission to end free internet content. There was an excellent article on this in a recent Vanity Fair issue (although may it was in Esquire—I can’t remember for certain).
Murdoch just cannot wrap his head around the fact that people will not pay for internet content, and he has been trying to get all content providers to join him in charging for internet content. His rationale is that if everyone charges, then people will have no choice but to pay. He even accused the internet sites that collate other sites stories for people of “stealing” from him, even though the stories they are re-posting have been posted for free on Murdoch’s own sites.
Personally, I am in the “trial balloon” camp. I think they were throwing this out there to see how much reaction they would get. And if you do not believe there are people this dumb running these gigantic corporations, then you have not been paying much attention to NBC lately.
Murdoch just cannot wrap his head around the fact that people will not pay for internet content, and he has been trying to get all content providers to join him in charging for internet content.
Perhaps because he’s about the only one who’s succeeded with putting content behind a paid firewall (WSJ.com)
“I think it’s more this: Hulu the entity (run by Jason Kilar) sometimes has a different perspective on how Hulu should work than the partners who actually own the entity.”
Exactly correct.
Hulu seems to operate under the delusion that they are an independent entity and not a wholly owned subsidiary of some of the largest traditional media companies in the world.
If Jason Kilar and Chase Carey have a disagreement over the future of Hulu, who do you think is likely to prevail in that debate?
They have no control of their own destiny. None. It’s like a coach announcing that he’s going to bench his quarterback and the QB then putting out a statement that he has no current plan to be benched. It ain’t up to you, pal.
“Murdoch just cannot wrap his head around the fact that people will not pay for internet content”
Sure he can. What he really can’t wrap his head around is the notion that he’s expected to subsidize money-losing businesses forever.
The pay-for-content strategy is a put up or shut up gambit. Show me that you can make a profit on your own or get out of town. Sometimes I think he doesn’t actually expect pay-for-content to work. It’s just a way to transition out of some bad businesses.
Nothing will happen with Hulu in regards to most of the content people think about (CBS/Fox/NBC) who are already free/ad backed at their website.
But Hulu would love to get into the ballgame of offering better movies and pay-cable programming. “True Blood” “Dexter” “Californication” on Hulu.
There is good reason to believe negotiations for a Premium model of Hulu will be coming down the pike, but the panic spread to their core product which is unlikely to change, as the ink is already dry on those contracts.
Hulu should consider selling blocks of time to viewers who want to view cable shows.
Hulu is on crack if they think anyone will pay for content. Not in this day and age. Think of people’s lifestyles and it’s all about the R E N T. In this economy Time Warner Cable, Verizon and AT&T are working with consumers to extend payment options on basic cable and phone service. People don’t have the income to pay for a television show cause you have to buy a full season of programs for it to make sense to a consumer. You can get a full 2 hour plus movie at RedBox for a buck. Mama didn’t raise no fool here but that’s easy addition and subrtaction. And just because Wall Street is back doesn’t mean Main Street is close behind. Consumer’s spending habits will change immensely after this depression, and it is a depression. We will not spend freely like in the old days. And paying for content online, like some online news services are thinking about doing, will be awesome for the free providers of any type of content. Not a smart plan but if you’re a guy making millions, what the hay do you know about being a regular consumer?
The problem, as I see it, is that these media companies really have no clue what consumers actually want. They think that consumers will eat up everything that they offer to them, but the reality is that the internet has granted consumers more power and more choices as to how they want to consumer their media. You saw the same problem with the music industry, and they still have not learned their lesson.
The file sharing community has grown stronger in the last decade because they give consumers exactly what they want: total control and total freedom over media content. I believe that Hulu became popular because it was an easier alternative for most people. I cannot count how many comments I have read over the past two days where people wrote that they will just go back to downloading TV shows if they cannot watch them for free on Hulu. And it really doesn’t matter if Chase Carey or Jeff Zucker “mis-spoke” about Hulu, eventually the media companies involved will want to increase Hulu revenue by utilizing a subscription-based model. That is when everyone will bail (if they haven’t already).