It’s no “Arrested Development,” but Hulu is today announcing that it, too, is bringing TV programs back from the dead. (Coming back from the dead – hey, that sounds like a soap plot!). Hulu has now signed a deal with media production Prospect Park to air the previously canceled soap operas “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” on Hulu and Hulu Plus, where they’re air in addition to Apple’s… → Read More
Continuing its expansion into original content and exclusive third-party content, Hulu is today offering previews of its new programming for 2013, which includes its first animated Hulu Original Series, “The Awesomes,” co-created by Saturday Night Live’s head writer Seth Meyers alongside Emmy winning producer and SNL alum, Michael Shoemaker. → Read More
Hulu just posted an internal email from CEO Jason Kilar to its blog, indicating that he and CTO Rich Tom will be leaving the company during the first quarter of 2013. The timing is new, but word that Kilar was on his way out was circulating as early as August 2012, when an internal memo included a passage about transitioning to a new CEO. → Read More
This morning, Hulu announced a new section called “Hulu Kids,” which, as the name implies, organizes all the kid-friendly content in one easy-to-access section within Hulu’s video library. The section is available online directly at Hulu.com/kids, and it can also be found in the “Kids” section of the “Browse” menu. → Read More
Hulu has finally done a deal with CBS, bringing shows from the one broadcast holdout into its content library. Beginning in January, CBS content will become available through Hulu Plus. But don’t get too excited: You won’t be able to watch Big Bang Theory through Hulu’s iPad app in January — it’ll just be a selection of older, so-called library content that Hulu is getting. → Read More
It’s been a long time coming, but private equity firm Providence Equity Partners has sold its stake in Hulu for $200 million, a person familiar with the matter has confirmed. The buyout of the firm’s shares, which has closed but has not yet been announced, will have a huge impact on Hulu and could significantly shape its future. → Read More
If you’re even a casual gamer, you know that video game systems and platforms have come a long way in the past twenty years. I’m old, so I remember rockin’ out to the Atari 2600, enjoying each and every pixel that passed by on my little TV.
Those days are over, and video game systems like Xbox and PlayStation 3 let you enjoy more than just games, including social networking and multimedia… → Read More
Ivi.ru the “Hulu of Russia” that offers streamed premium TV and films from international and local big-name content holders, has raised another $40 million round of funding. The investment was led by Baring Vostok, a private equity firm, along with existing investors ru-Net, Tiger Global, Prof-Media and Frontier Ventures. Oleg Tumanov, ivi.ru founder and CEO, tells TechCrunch that the funds will… → Read More
If you love watching TV shows on Hulu but don’t have a cable subscription, things could get a bit more complicated in the near future. According to the New York Post, Hulu could soon start requiring its users to prove that they also have a cable or satellite subscription. This would obviously turn Hulu’s current business model on its head. It’s not clear how many of the service’s 31 million users… → Read More
Hulu has been having a busy week. On Tuesday, the company announced a new deal for advertisers, which now charges them only for ad completions, and today at Hulu’s upfronts, the company announced the arrival of even more original shows.
We already knew of several of the programs Hulu discussed this morning, including “Battleground,” “Up to Speed,” and “A Day in the Life,” for example. But this… → Read More
This morning, at the Ad Age Digital Conference in NYC, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar announced a significant change in how the media company will charge its advertisers. Going forward, advertisers will only be charged based on a 100% completion rate. In other words, if viewers don’t watch the whole ad, it doesn’t count.
The change will be effective in both the free level of service and the… → Read More
When I first saw the pitch for Splitflix over the weekend I guffawed a little into my bourbon. The site purports to allow you to “share” your Netflix or Hulu account with a random stranger using a P2P matching system. You and the other person pay half of the cost of the subscription and then enjoy your cheaper streaming accounts.
However, after a bit of digging, as a product it seems solid and… → Read More
The folks over at Hulu originally promised Wii users would have access to their Hulu Plus streaming service by the end of 2011, but things didn’t exactly pan out the way they had hoped. Well, after a few extra months of waiting, the Nintendo-faithful are finally being rewarded for their patience: the Hulu Plus app can be downloaded from the Wii Shop Channel.
The app itself is free, but actually… → Read More
The 2012 Super Bowl has come and gone, while you’re left to clean up the beer cans, wash off that face paint, and get back to planning your next pivot. The game itself provided more than enough excitement, with the New York Football Giants eking out a win over the star-crossed Tom Bradys and Bill Belichicks. This year’s Big Game also marked the first time that a Super Bowl was streamed live… → Read More
Hulu is launching its first-ever original scripted series with its 13-episode order of Battleground, a political comedy following the campaign trail of a third-place candidate in Wisconsin angling for a seat in the Senate.
The show is kicking off Hulu’s foray into scripted programming, and will be followed by two other original shows: a second season of documentarian Morgan Spurlock’s A Day… → Read More
Hulu CEO Jason Kilar just posted a recap of the online content business in 2011, and revealed that Hulu’s revenue grew 60% from 2010 to approximately $420 million. While the growth is a good sign, this is less that the $500 million expected for the year.
Kilar says that Hulu Plus now has more than 1.5 million paying subscribers and is attracting more than 2 times the number of subscribers each… → Read More
Hulu does TV shows better than just about everyone. In fact, other than YouTube, Hulu attracts the highest level of engagement of any web video platform (with the average web viewer watching an average of 3.2 hours a month). That being said, Hulu has never done social particularly well. Sure, users interact on Hulu discussion boards, tweet clips to friends, and share shows on Facebook, but the… → Read More
Hulu Plus has found its way to a handful of Android devices these past few months, but today it makes its first official appearance on an Android tablet — just maybe not the one you were expecting. → Read More
A week ago, Fox changed its licensing rules so that non-paying users of Hulu would be unable to watch new episodes of their shows until eight days after their air date. Put on your analyst hat and think about what effect this might have on, say, piracy of those shows. Did you determine that it would increase piracy? Congratulations, you are a better judge of consequences than Fox. Because piracy… → Read More
Premium video streaming site Hulu has just announced that it’s about to make its first international expansion: Japan.
Hulu is keeping mum on the details, but it sounds like it will only offer a premium subscription service (the US version of Hulu offers both premium and free content). The company now has an office in Tokyo and is working on preparing for launch “later this year” (again, no… → Read More
While Yahoo! remains the best positioned digital media company around, Wall Street remains unconvinced.
Yahoo!’s revenues are not growing as fast as other online media companies (GOOG, AMZN, Facebook, etc). Moreover, between Facebook’s grip on display ad inventory and DSPs changing the way advertisers buy inventory, Yahoo’s core business (display, reach) is under threat → Read More
If you’re one of the Internet’s many denizens still shedding an oh-so-first-world-problem tear over Netflix’s business strategy overhaul pricing changes, you’re probably still looking for somewhere else to spend your two lattes worth of monthly fees in exchange for countless hours of entertainment. Hulu Plus, perhaps?
If you’re an Android user, chances are pretty decent that Hulu Plus just got… → Read More
A new study by Yahoo (embedded below) shows that online video watching habits are shifting. People are watching longer videos and watching more at night during primetime. The chart above shows when people watch videos online. The blue line is today (2011) and the dotted line is two years ago (2009). The two lines show more than a 30 percent divergence during primetime.
So what changed? Peak… → Read More
Tired of not being able to get your on-the-go Modern Family fix from Hulu just because you’re rockin’ an Android phone rather than an iPhone? Fret no longer! Hulu Plus for Android has arrived. Sort of. → Read More
Interesting story breaking that Yahoo put an unsolicited bid in to acquire Hulu. For all I know it’s completely true. But I’ve just received an unsolicited message from a source close to Yahoo that says it’s completely untrue (probably because of all my digging the last week on this Yahoo story).
Yahoo hasn’t had any meaningful conversations with Hulu about a buyout, says this source. The source… → Read More
Two weeks after Miramax announced a major content deal with Netflix, the studio this morning announced that it has also struck a multi-year agreement with Hulu to bring hundreds of films, including Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting, Scream and The English Patient to Hulu Plus subscribers. Hulu will offer select films via the advertising-supported Hulu.com service to boot.
Launching today, Hulu Plus… → Read More
You’ve waited for it. You’ve prayed for it. You’ve spilled the blood of countless sacrificial chickens for it. And now it’s here: Hulu Plus for Xbox 360. The service is launching tomorrow and you’re basically getting the Hulu interface with which you’re familiar plus a few Kinect add-ons including voice control and gestures. With sufficient bandwidth you also… → Read More
By the end of this year, an estimated 2 million households in the U.S. will have abandoned TV for the Web, cutting the cord with their cable companies. This estimate comes from Convergence Consulting Group, a Toronto-based research firm with a new report on The Battle for the American Couch Potato. That 2 million is up from the 1.6 million it was estimating a year ago, but it is still rather… → Read More
ComScore has just released data from its Video Metrix service, showing that 170 million Internet users in the United States watched online video content in February for an average of 13.6 hours per viewer.
According to the audience measurement giant, the total U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 5 billion viewing sessions during the course of last month. Google Sites (read: YouTube) again… → Read More
In a new report on digital trends in 2010
When it comes to premium video on the Web, Hulu still rules. In the fourth quarter, the U.S. online audience watched 19.4 billin minutes of video on Hulu, which was twice as much as the how much viewers watched on the websites of the five major TV networks combined. Viewers watched another 9.7 billion minutes of online video on the websites of ABC, CBS… → Read More
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