Hulu, a Victim of Its Own Success? | Hacker News Reader

Hulu, a Victim of Its Own Success?

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29 pointsmjfern8 comments

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.

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.

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... . 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.

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

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.)

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.)

It'll be interesting when companies who have paid for product placement on those shows have direct links to purchase said products, right in Hulu. This can also be extended to show DVDs and other official studio-produced merch. Think of it as "As Seen On TV" infomercial people actually want to watch.

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

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