Disney says Hulu will accept political issue ads | Hacker News Reader

Disney says Hulu will accept political issue ads

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23 pointssamizdis97 comments

When will these companies learn that shriekers on twitter don't represent the preferences of their actual customer base?

Or maybe it won't matter, because since normal people have other things to worry about it always pays to give in to the loudest, most obnoxious people. In which case, i guess we can look forward to a future where everything is influenced by the most unhinged.

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

Nietzsche called it “the tyrannomania of impotence”. I can’t just imagine being so passionate about — ads?

Well, I mean, the passion doesn't come from a vacuum here. The controversy here was started by a group of campaign directors. You can be and I am concerned about the media dynamics here, but it's not a big mystery why campaign committees would care deeply about buying a lot of ads or why Disney might decide it's a good business move to let them.

Oh absolutely - totally agreed about folks who’s jobs this is or who’s revenue it represents. I am more flabbergasted by the “boycott” from normal customers who are apparently outraged they won’t be seeing ads they already agree with.

As far as I've seen reported, there was no boycott or grassroots outrage here. I think this is just a story of Disney accepting demands from a somewhat controversial industry with strong government connections that they must be allowed to advertise on Hulu.

Hrm, it's possible it's exaggerated, but that's all I've seen reported.

https://www.avclub.com/hulu-boycott-abortion-gun-control-ads...

https://www.newsweek.com/cancel-hulu-calls-grow-after-disney...

https://www.adweek.com/lostremote/boycott-hulu-streamer-reje...

While these articles are certainly framed and headlined to make people think there's a boycott movement, neither the first nor third article actually report on anyone in particular who's called for a boycott. The Newsweek article suggests why, with its most prominent sources for a boycott including some random indie musician and "user smilingoutloud2". I should have caveated that there's always noise on Twitter calling for silly things, but I don't see much reason to believe that there was ever a real boycott movement or that Disney was motivated by fear there could be.

> ...or why Disney might decide it's a good business move to let them.

There's also the angle where Disney's decision-makers might be sympathetic to the people in the campaign committees for personal, non-business reasons.

Who says your quote on the bottom doesn't describe you on the side you didn't intend to be on?

Every time there's any political news, all I can see is people complaining about "shriekers". Have you considered that complaint in itself might be considered the "shrieking" you so despise?

I guess it's possible i've been sending outraged missives to Hulu in my sleep, but I don't think so.

Seems to me you left one right here though. You might not consider it as such, but I'm sure neither did the people you complained about.

So essentially, the problem you're addressing is not whether either side is "shrieking" but rather the inadequacy of conveying tone through text.

WE CAN A LITTLE BIT I GUESS!?!!!?!?!!

But not by much. Never been a fan of English because of the lack of overt tonal expression; with gusto.

Its funny that you say that. I initially read his comment as being in favor of the move, despite the "shriekers" on twitter who he perceives to care too much about fairly mundane details of Disney's revenue model.

Now I realize that its also possible that the "shriekers" were in favor of political ads and he's against them.

Yeah, both sides look shriek-tastic to me.

>"Have you considered that complaint in itself might be considered the "shrieking" you so despise?"

No. In fact I see this as a very underhanded rhetorical cheap trick - essentially a catch-22. Only on the most basic level is criticism of critical people some kind of hypocritical indictment.

'You say you don't like people taking things too seriously, yet it sounds like YOU are the one taking things too seriously. Curious'.

It seems to me like you (and OP) are trying to police what is and what isn't acceptable criticism.

Why is criticism of company policies "shrieking", but criticism of criticism not?

Or to go a level further, why is my criticism of his criticism of their criticism a "rhetorical cheap trick", but your criticism to the power of four presumably legitimate?

Is this fifth level of criticism a "rhetorical trick"/"shrieking" too? And will your potential riposte be legitimate again?

From what I have gleaned from the posts made by the so-called 'shriekers' on Twitter, their style is to post and react in hyperbolic and pearl-clutching way. To be worried about something is one thing, to be gravely concerned is another, but it seems like such people routinely catastrophize and grandstand on issues that the average person would not consider that serious. I suspect this is because there is a feedback loop due to the way engagement works on social media.

I like your perspective of criticism to a power/derivative level, but that's not the angle I'm trying to come from. Rather, I am saying the nature of the criticism is what distinguishes between the two.

I must admit, I'm not really a Twitter user and can't speak to the comments made there.

I do, however, read HN and every time a company changes policy due to some outrage, the first comment is always somebody saying something along the lines of what OP was saying.

That, to me, is just as annoying as I'm sure the original outrage was to OP. It's a low-effort rant about society and how it budges to spammy complaints without seeing the irony of being a spammy complaint itself.

I don't think the nature is fundamentally different and that might be where we disagree.

>"That, to me, is just as annoying as I'm sure the original outrage was to OP. It's a low-effort rant about society and how it budges to spammy complaints without seeing the irony of being a spammy complaint itself."

Understandable. And to be honest I'm increasingly fatigued in relation to what discourse has become. You had mentioned earlier that I was trying to police what is and isn't acceptable criticism, and in a way you're right. I would like to see a lot less hyperbolic pearl-clutching sophistry. But the downside is that trying to confront the use of such rhetoric is sadly perceived as negative or equivalent.

In the past if you made a movie with a lot of sex and violence, you might get some angry letters from conservative moral majority types. But eventually, people learned not to pay too much attention to those letter writers, because they didn't represent the preferences of the actual paying audience.

I don't think discussing those letter writers is similar to engaging in the actual pressure campaign, but it doesn't matter much anyway.

I just think it's likely that the people who prefer to see political ads are small in number but feel strongly and the people who prefer not to see political ads are large in number but less likely to organize around it.

I think that only works in the short term.

When your catering to that fringe becomes a problem or uncomfortable, people will drop you en masse — precisely because they’re too busy to care.

Hollywood’s stocks aren’t doing well enough to say their strategy of catering to the fringe is working: they’ve all suffered massive losses as people tune out.

But it’s not because people are fundamentally uninterested: Rippaverse raised over $3M, anime and manga are setting records, etc.

> When your catering to that fringe becomes a problem or uncomfortable, people will drop you en masse — precisely because they’re too busy to care.

The problem is that people can become inured to it, especially if there aren't better options. That state can exist for a long, long time.

Edit:

> But it’s not because people are fundamentally uninterested: Rippaverse raised over $3M, anime and manga are setting records, etc.

After Googling a bit, that Rippaverse thing seems like it's an opposite-polarity reaction, so it's still part of the problem.

Sure — that’s why we’ve spent five years with terrible Star Wars and Marvel movies pandering to a niche audience.

But eventually the music stops and everyone leaves… which is what we’re seeing now:

Those companies haven’t produced quality within easy memory (5 years) and so people are overcoming their decades of inertia to find new properties.

You can look at the different receptions of Reacher and Terminal List versus Wheel of Time and Rings of Power, though, to see that putting The Message over quality doesn’t work.

> After Googling a bit, that Rippaverse thing seems like it's an opposite-polarity reaction, so it's still part of the problem.

You should listen to Rippa’s own description rather than the press around it:

He’s just trying to make a quality comic book, no explicit message.

That’s portrayed as “anti-woke” because not putting The Message front and center is a revolutionary act, these days.

> He’s just trying to make a quality comic book, no explicit message. That’s portrayed as “anti-woke” because not putting The Message front and center is a revolutionary act, these days.

This is extremely interesting to me for a couple of reasons. The use of "these days" here makes me think that you consider comic books with a political message (or Message, as you spell it) are a new phenomenon. That's deeply ahistorical; the first superheroes - among them Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America - were created in the 1930s with pretty clear political agendas. Captain America's would, I hope, be obvious; he was created by American Jews who wanted to portray the fight against fascism, and specifically Nazism, as patriotic and righteous. Superman, too, was created by American Jews, and has periodically been portrayed as anti-Communist and generally anti-authoritarian throughout his entire existence as a character. Wonder Woman was created in the 1940s by a polyamorous triad of outspoken feminists, and her creators explicitly stated at the time:

> Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.

Superhero comics without significant, explicit political messaging are rare in the history of the medium. Popular ones are even moreso.

> The use of "these days" here makes me think that you consider comic books with a political message (or Message, as you spell it) are a new phenomenon.

You went on a whole rant based on a poor assumption.

> Superhero comics without significant, explicit political messaging are rare in the history of the medium.

Your entire post is based around poor assumptions:

My comment was about the relative importance of political message and themes versus the quality of story telling — which you misconstrued as some kind of extremist statement about “no politics in comics!”

Redlettermedia perfectly demonstrated how politics in modern media is often done so poorly in their Picard reviews. Compared to old Star Trek, which frequently explored current-day political themes that were subtle and cleverly told through stories where you learn they are bad via their actions and consequences (aka allegories).

https://youtu.be/aQ2TQ_GRO4g?t=1528

But whenever they came up in Picard it's always pointing at something and saying this BAD. Or that GOOD.

It no longer assumes the reader/viewer is smart enough to make connections and draw their own conculsions. It has to be explicit to the point of bashing it over your head.

I'd recommend going back and rewatching STNG. I did a couple years ago and was shocked by how preachy and sacarine it was. Not at all the way my nostalgia remembered it.

I was disappointed in the latest season of Picard, but I don't think calling the unsubtle preaching a departure from the classic series is a fair critism. It was always there.

When is the last time you watched The Original Series? Just to pick one example, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (S3:E15) features an utterly ham-fisted metaphor for racism and slavery. It's also one of the best-reviewed episodes in the series, even today.

Star Trek has been an explicitly and somewhat clumsily political show since the very beginning, and people like that about it.

I watched the first season of TOS this year.

> The use of "these days" here makes me think that you consider comic books with a political message (or Message, as you spell it) are a new phenomenon. That's deeply ahistorical; the first superheroes - among them Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America - were created in the 1930s with pretty clear political agendas.

I think what might be different "these days" is the level of polarization, or at least how gaping and in-the-open it is. Perhaps back then the agenda wasn't as grating because it better reflected some consensus?

Subtlety is dead. You have to put your political positions on your sleeve. Because everything is oh-so-important and urgent these days you don't have the time to gracefully weave important values it into the narrative. Or something.

Just throw in some side character who are caricatures of current thing or have the main characters preach about it directly.

Wheel of Time is a great example of the issue, though. In the early 1990s, a series where the most powerful organization in the known world is a multiracial women's group and men aren't allowed to channel because they'll just break things was very much in accordance with "The Message". But you and I were much younger in the 90s, so these kind of things seem normal to us, while it seems ham-fisted to make a prophecy conspicuously sex-neutral or have characters explain that they don't like to assume where people are from based on their appearance.

> Wheel of Time is a great example of the issue, though. In the early 1990s, a series where the most powerful organization in the known world is a multiracial women's group and men aren't allowed to channel because they'll just break things was very much in accordance with "The Message".

I take it you mean this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time

I had initially mistaken it for a A Wrinkle in Time, given your description seemed to fit my vague impressions (from ads, etc) of the film adaption that has Oprah (and I have zero memory of the book).

Sure — but I think it’s more complicated than your description:

Wheel of Time had elements of a message within it, but they didn’t take pre-eminence over the story… it was used to frame it, but that sexist power structure was a major conflict within the story because that wasn’t right either, even though it was a rational idea at the time it started.

Wheel of Time isn’t “The Message” of the 90s, but an examination of the back-and-forth between sexes which casts both extremes as problematic: men can’t shun their potential for ruin, but women-only and shunning men entirely doesn’t work either. The series goes out of its way to frame partnership as the ideal — to the point both sexes are required for elaborate magic. And that complex dynamic was framed within a well told story.

I think that stands in stark contrast to modern media — and that’s the difference I’m trying to highlight.

Amazon’s telling threw out all that complexity which explored the good and bad within both sexes to instead push a hamfisted ideology.

Disney is a very successful and long-lived company. If I had to bet money, I'd bet they know their customer base very well and are correctly positioning themselves for maximum profit.

> When will these companies learn that shriekers on twitter don't represent the preferences of their actual customer base?

It is all about the money. Hulu's ad revenue was most likely found to be underperforming the rest of Disney and political issue ads is at least one of the differences. They are just using this as a cover.

I stopped downloading torrents when streaming came along.

I maxed out my Hulu subscription to avoid commercials.

Hulu forces commercials on me anyway.

And now I get to watch commercials about 'Merica, which apparently dictates worldwide political matters. Sweet.

Isn't Hulu only available in America?

I'm still a little shady. But only a little.

Did Hulu start airing commercials to those paying for the premium plan?

I was wondering the same thing.

Personally, I consider those opening seconds of "You are watching (channel)" as a sort of ad, especially since it can't be skipped, but I haven't seen any outright ad breaks on premium. Yet.

Checking hulu.com, it looks like the $13/month plan is ad-free

If you are outside the US do you actually get served US political ads?

They use a VPN since Hulu isn’t available outside of the US.

Hulu and 20CF content on Disney+ is available via their Star branding internationally.

I cancelled Hulu for a few months simply because I was watching a romantic comedy and they showed a Horror commercial that was so gross that I cancelled on the spot.

I don't like political ads, but there are good arguments for them.

Ads for horror movies that involve grotesque things I have to hide my kids from? I don't see the value there.

At least let me opt out or something. I have not watched horror in 20 years and have no intention of ever watching it.

Wait.

Are you saying there are commercials in paid subscriptions?

Yes, you can pay more to remove them I believe.

You can pay more to remove some commercials but not all. From their FAQ:

> Q: I subscribe to Hulu (No Ads) but I’m still seeing ads during on-demand videos

> A: Most of our streaming library is ad-free for Hulu (No Ads) subscribers, but there are a few shows that will still have ads.

For live TV there are ads, but that's because there are ads during live TV, regardless.

However, Hulu does offer up ad-free options.

https://help.hulu.com/s/article/hulu-no-ads

Basically, people opt-into seeing ads. They can opt-into seeing no ads, too. It's not rocket science.

I thought the same thing until about 2 minutes ago.

https://help.hulu.com/s/article/ads-no-commercials

Yep. There are subscription levels with and without ads. I believe the ad free is $7 more per month.

and a year or two ago, when I had a hulu subscription, that ad-free plan didn't mean no ads on all channels. just on their 'core' ones. If it was a partner company, they still showed ads, even if you paid for ad-free.

That's one of the worst things about advertising at the moment, IMO. There's no awareness of context. I just had a paid promotion in a YT video interrupted by a YT ad last night.

It doesn't help that ad lengths and frequency are getting out of hand. Its almost like they want to intentionally make the experience bad enough that you give them >$10/month just to get rid of the ads.

I was randomly on Snapchat recently and it's bizarre the short of content that major brands are running their ads on. It's roughly Daily Mail-level of drivel. And they also run every few seconds, literally seconds - and are often unskippable. Maybe the kids are ok with this? But no matter Snap's recent recovery, it's a defeat in a different sense.

Thankfully I have control of my computer and can decide what does and does not display on it. Thank you adblockers.

People that are complaining about ads can opt-into add-free viewing.

https://help.hulu.com/s/article/hulu-no-ads

I don't see the issue. You don't want to see ads, there are numerous ways to go about this. I really don't see the issue. You have a lot of choices to watch things without seeings ads.

I have done this but it is not really a matter of "opting in". This is simply paying more for removing ads. People on the cheaper plans do not get to check a box to opt out of an ad. The price for the ad free plan is almost double that of the plan with ads ($13 vs $7).

Annoyingly enough, they will still show previous of shitty shows you're not interested in watching.

https://help.hulu.com/s/article/ads-no-commercials

> Broadcasters are required by law to accept ads from political candidates on any topic, no matter how controversial it may be.

> Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press

I think this law amounts to compulsory speech by the broadcaster, and SCOTUS should strike it under strict scrutiny.

Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC?

Broadcasters is a specific terminology referring to companies that broadcast on airwaves licensed from the federal government and have thus agreed to stipulations based on that license.

If broadcasters weren't limited in that way, a private company would be leveraging federal government resources to selectively broadcast speech by some politicians but not others, which sounds like a freedom of speech issue that warrants concern as well in my book.

Broadcasters trade these rules for exclusive access to the radio spectrum. We all agree to not broadcast overtop them and they agree to equal access. The internet doesn’t play by these rules.

Since Hulu doesn't use scarce radio spectrum, I wonder how applying this restriction to them is rationalized.

This isn't being applied by the FCC, its being implemented in a response to public and political feedback, presumably on the basis that Disney allows advertising on most of their other ad-supported platforms which have more conservative audiences.

Axios didn't do a particularly good job of clarifying the relevance of information about broadcasters in their piece.

> its being implemented in a response to public and political feedback

Do you honestly believe that? I have little doubt it was more along the lines of cross-checking their ad revenue with the rest of Disney and saw Hulu was performing atrociously due to excluding political issue ads. This just happens to be a "good story" alternative to saying they want more money.

Fair enough, I definitely wouldn't put it past Disney.

There must be no respite.

Toxic ads will continue until morale improves.

don't forget to tell people who just bought an original DVD that pirating is wrong

pirating is morally correct.

There's always a respite, except people are not morally comfortable with pirating or using extensive ad blocking, it seems, though the latter is far more common, of course. Honestly, I see no issue in making it so that I don't ever have to see an advertisement if it can be avoided, especially a targeted advertisement. Same goes for pirating a piece of media if the licensed version has DRM. I'll pay for it, sure, but I'll pirate a copy and read/watch that. I pay for my Spotify account and I have no ads, I can listen to whatever music I want, that's the kind of service that makes me happy.

I know that Spotify apparently has regional restrictions but I have not run into any of those yet, which might say something about my taste being narrow? Either way.

I’ve seen many ads on paid Spotify. Large banners advertising podcasts on opening the app, a “podcasts to look at” row in the home page. They’re thankfully less frequent as of late, though.

I hate this. My home screen used to display things like new releases I might like (separate from the release radar playlist). Now I more often see droves of podcasts I don't care about and have ever expressed interest in.

Erm - those aren’t ads? If you’re already paying and there is product on the shelf of the store you’re already inside of… that’s just a product.

Yeah, that's like saying YouTube's recommended videos are ads. Sure, they promote stuff, but they're a completely different category to the drivel they run before videos, where I have to watch commercials for products I'd never use. One is promoting the platform's content, one is going "Get yourself to Aldi and buy a pipe cleaner! Now!"

I'm so shocked on the rare occasion I see an ad. First by the fact it's an ad on my screen, secondly by how banal and horrible they are. Closed within seconds if it ever happens.

Happiness :)

I wonder why people pirate TV shows.

Everything which matters is a political issue, that's sort of the point, that's what politics is. The United States of America is substantially founded on this sort of blindness of what constitutes an actual political issue, which is how you got a "Land of the free" built by enslaved people.

So this policy is actually about what type of political issue ads will be allowed. Hulu would always have allowed various advertisements lauding Capitalist ideology, which is certainly a political issue, but perhaps before this change it might not have allowed you to point out that Women's Rights are Human Rights for example.

disney shows itself time and time again to be an organ of the DNC.

More like the other way around, I think.

> More like the other way around, I think.

Honestly, it doesn't have to be an either-or thing. It could be a symbiotic quid-pro-quo.

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