By now you’ve probably seen the dark, amazing intro that renowned artist Banksy created for The Simpsons. And, in the process of looking for the video, there’s a decent chance you came across YouTube’s infamous screen stating that the content had been removed at the request of the copyright owner. In this case, it was apparently Fox, which would much rather you watch the content on Hulu — which it owns a major stake in.
Well, it looks like goodness (or logic) has prevailed: the Banksy intro is now back on YouTube. → Read More
According to a Reuters report, Hulu is preparing to IPO in the first half of 2011. Sources told the news organization that Hulu will be looking to raise between $200 million and $300 million in a deal valuing the company at about $2 billion. Reports about Hulu’s IPO ambitions first surfaced last summer, but this may signal that a filing might be imminent.
Hulu is expected to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission before the end of the year, which will set the company to IPO anywhere between January and May of 2011. Reuters’ source says the offering is “contingent on the renewal of rights to carry shows, some of which expire in a year.” → Read More
Hope you don’t have an Apple TV shipment notification in your inbox. You’re about to get a little media streamer jealousy because it seems a Hulu channel is launching on the Roku platform shortly.
BusinessOfVideo.com apparently confirmed with a couple Hulu content partners that the service will soon be available on the streamer. Of course you should probably file this in your Unfounded Internet Rumors folder, bow it raises a couple of questions if it’s true. And boy do I hope it’s true. → Read More
Can you guess what is the “perhaps the most overhyped and overanticipated phenomenon in tech history”? If you guessed “replacing cable TV with Internet services like Hulu,” have a cookie! For all the talk of Google TV this and Boxee that, the numbers couldn’t be more clear: hardly anybody plans on ditching cable TV for a world of Internet-delivered content. It’s a nice idea, and maybe one that will gain traction in the future, but right now? Not happening, sorry. → Read More
Hulu is testing the waters for an IPO, hoping to get a valuation of $2 billion, according to the New York Times. A Hulu IPO would be a pure play on the transition of TV to the Web. While the company has not yet filed with the SEC, in the past it claimed to have 2009 revenues of $100 million, and is perhaps on track to double that this year.
It is not clear how profitable Hulu can be, or how viable its long-term survival will be. Hulu already has to fork over as much as half or more of its advertising revenues to its TV network partners/backers (Fox, NBC, and ABC). But it is not a complete experience. You can’t watch CBS shows on Hulu, and earlier this year Viacom decided to pull its most popular shows from Comedy Central. And NBC’s new owner Comcast has its own plans for streaming TV on the Web. It is not clear how long it will continue to support Hulu.
Until we see it’s actual SEC filing with audited financials, investors won’t be able to make an informed decision one way or another. Maybe I’ll be blown away by the numbers and they will change my mind. But from what I know right now, I’d say Hulu still has some proving to do. → Read More
You Americans have all the good stuff. Stuff like BP pumping oil in the Ocean and guns, lots of guns. And then you have Netflix and we people outside the U.S. are wondering what could it feel like to have a service like that. Now I know. → Read More
So Hulu Plus preview users on the PS3 and iPad have run into some strange licensing issues. The details on the iPad situation are a bit unclear, but the PS3 users get to pay lots of extra fees for the privilege of watching content they could see for free on the web. → Read More
As the great race to become America’s favorite source of full-length TV and movie streams gets underway, two of the favorites in that race are Hulu and Netflix. Hulu has a fairly large headstart. It is the No. 2 video site in the U.S after YouTube, and serves more than 1 billion videos a month. Meanwhile, Netflix, which is constantly adding to its catalog of streaming movies, only just broke into the top 20 last February. However, it is catching up fast, with serious streaming offerings on laptops, the Wii, and the iPad.
These video view numbers come from comScore Video Metrix, but by a more recent, and more general, measure Netflix is edging past Hulu. According to comScore, plain Web traffic in terms of unique individual visitors to Netflix was 20.2 million in June, 2010, just edging past Hulu’s 19.7 million (see chart). The vast majority of Netflix visitors are there to add movies to their mail-in DVD list, but increasingly they are starting to stream them directly as well. Overall traffic has been growing nicely since April, when Netflix streaming became available on the Wii. Traffic is up 15 percent since April (during a time when Hulu traffic has been essentially flat), and 46 percent from last year. → Read More
Listen, I hate forking over $100 a month for my TV, too. I also wholeheartedly agree with The Consumerist picking Comcast as the worst company in America. But they still get my money every month and just like the vast majority of people who pay for their TV, that’s not going to change anytime soon. There simply isn’t anything that replicates the experience and is free or low-cost. No one, not even Google, Hulu or Netflix, will cause America to part ways with the subscription-based TV model. → Read More
Are you ready to pay $9.95 a month for more TV? Hulu Plus, Hulu’s subscription offering, essentially offers more TV for $10 including full seasons of many shows including Glee and everything else on TV that isn’t Glee.
The program is available for iPad and iPhone and will soon be available for PS3 (with a $9.95/month PSN subscription) and Xbox 360. → Read More
Maybe we should do a post all about what brands and devices Hulu Plus is not going to come to. It’d be shorter. Samsung, for its part, just announced that it too will be getting the premium TV service, on most 2010 Blu-ray players and TVs over 40″. You can download the app today if you’ve got the hardware, but it’ll just be sample content for now. You can request an invite to the preview period via the app. → Read More
The rumors were true. Today, Hulu is announcing a limited launch of Hulu Plus, an ad-supported, premium subscription service that will run $9.99 per month and includes HD access to full season runs of shows from Fox, ABC, and NBC. Better yet, Hulu Plus will work across a multitude of platforms, including PCs, the iPad, iPhone, some Samsung Blu-ray players, and soon, the PlayStation 3. The service is currently only available to select Hulu members who have been invited — you can request an invite here.
Even if you don’t have an invite, you’ll still be able to download a Hulu Plus application on the iPad, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 (it isn’t up on the App Store yet — we’ll update when it is). The application will feature a limited number of episodes, but you’ll be able to get a feel what the service will be like. Hulu says that the service will launch broadly in the coming months. → Read More
Hulu’s founding CTO Eric Feng is leaving the streaming video company he helped turn into one of the web’s most popular video portals. Feng will be joining Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a Partner focusing on greentech, and will also start serving as former Vice President Al Gore’s tech advisor. He will remain at Hulu until July 16, when he will be replaced by Rich Tom, who will take over Hulu’s technology platform, and Eugene Wei, who will take over the “audience business” including the Hulu.com website. Christina Lee, Hulu’s director of corporate communications (and Feng’s wife), will be leaving as well.
Feng and Hulu CEO Jason Kilar just announced the news on the Hulu blog. → Read More
These aren’t new rumors, exactly: we heard Hulu bought a ticket to Xbox-town a week ago, and of course the pay model has been a long time coming. In fact, it was supposed to launch a couple weeks ago. We heard there was a delay, and now “sources” are saying the move to pay (and to other devices, including the iPad) will happen “in the next month or two.” What! That’s as specific as they could get? Some source! Reuters would do better to read CrunchGear. → Read More
From DVR to On-Demand, more and more TV viewers are choosing when they get to watch their favorite programs. The greater question has been how you’ll be able to get all the other content to your screen — stuff like Netflix and Hulu. If you have an Xbox, the latter problem may be a thing of the past. → Read More
The Jay Leno/Conan O’Brien fight over the Tonight Show is long over. Leno soldiers on, and O’Brien is out mixing it up with real people on tour.
ut the resistance movement carries on, and Coco supporters (as O’brien is known) have found a bunch of outlets to vent their frustration. Some trick Leno into taking pictures supporting Coco. Others hang out on a Facebook page supporting him called “I’m with Coco / Conan O’Brien.”
But now there’s another way, and this one is likely to piss off NBC. Go to any Tonight Show clip on Hulu and check out the user added tags that appear in the mouseover. → Read More
While the LA Times noted that Hulu would soon be offering Hulu plus by May 24, the $10 will apparently not be rolled out by next Monday, thus allowing you unfettered access to the intellectual produce of thousands of studio employees for a least a few more months. → Read More
VP Eugene Wei might have overstepped recently when he posted to the Hulu company blog that they are looking at HTML 5, but don’t expect it to meet their needs any time soon. This is disappointing to iPad users since the current Hulu player won’t work for them. → Read More
