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It was just a question of when, not if. Disney will buy 27% of Hulu for less than $35 million to put full ABC episodes on the site — about what NBC and Fox have. (Providence Equity Partners also is an investor.) Disney will get 3 seats on Hulu’s board for Bob Iger, Kevin Mayer and Anne Sweeney. Disney and its ABC unit will provide current and older programming, including Scrubs, Private Practice, and Jimmy Kimmel Live. Hulu will also carry shows from ABC Family and SOAPnet and older feature films from Walt Disney Studios. What I don’t understand is how these supposed Big Media competitors are allowed to form this New Media cartel?
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Because it’s not a monopoly. There are at least 4 different distribution systems for this content: broadcast and cable networks, online streaming, downloads (itunes), and DVD sales/rental. Cartel or not, they’re putting their shows all over the place.
“Allowed”? What is this, the Soviet Union? I’m all for regulation to keep the game fair, but this statement is a little ridiculous.
I don’t see any other companies stepping up to the plate with the capital necessary to build out and advertise a site as good as Hulu. Others have tried, and none of them have been as sleek, worked as well, or have had the capital to market themselves effectively. You can chastise them for their positions vis-a-vis union compensation and call them a cartel all you want, but the fact is the companies who own Hulu have a better sense of what the consumer wants and, more importantly, how to execute and deliver. Your argument might hold water if the studios were witholding their content from possible competitors and thus creating a barrier to entry, but the studios (admittedly to varying degrees) have allowed other online VOD services access to their content (see: Amazon Unbox, vudu, Netflix, AppleTV, et al), so don’t act like there isn’t competition.
Whichever service consumers prefer will thrive, and the ones the suck will disappear.
I say let them. A step in the right direction for new media distribution
Well, so much for all the nonsense about there being no money in web distribution of content. Too bad the writers had to cave. Because that train has sailed. By the time the next contract rolls around, the writers will be long out of the money.
Meanwhile, CBS sits on the sidelines….
Hulu is arguably one of the best sites on the Net. The content is real, the ads happily short and bearable. It should have MORE media-conglom content on there. Hardly a monopoly as the content is indeed avail. elsewhere. What U should be worried about NF is that the actors/writers et al actually get paid for this use of the content…
uh, why wouldn’t they be allowed to? it’s a free service. it’s also a joint venture not unlike TW and CBS throwing money into The CW.
Um, vertical integration anyone? A little matter that dates back to the 1930′s when studios were busted for preferencing the theaters they owned. it wasn’t a monopoly back then either but they sure bullied the independent theater owners around. who’s to say it wont happen again online?
Nikki is right, companies — especially big public companies — are restricted from cooperating with each other for antitrust reasons. The history of such collusion historically warrants that restriction.
You make my argument above — if a bunch of of companies collude to make Hulu devastatingly better than what other competitors can do, they do use their combined strength to create an insurmountable barrier to entry.
Come on Cmon, Amzaon, vudu, NetFlix, Apple TV do not create the content – Disney, ABC, NBC and Fox do create the content. Competition? Doesn’t look like it to me.
Anti-Trust? I’ll have to do some more homework – hopefully the Justice Department and Congress do also. But it smells legally questionable to me whatever your consumer-insight argument might be.
Um…has anyone informed SAG about this?…Um…Ah… I mean, like…ah… Sag should be on top of this…right?… Um… ah… anyone out there???……..
Hello?…. (SFX ECHO HERE)
First it was tbs.com – you can get all the episodes online for shows they carry. Now its hulu.com.
My question is: Are they going to get rid of DVDs? Not everyone wants to watch these on their computer. We’ve invested in huge HD tvs. The bandwidth is shrinking (article out today that we’ll have internet brownouts by 2011), how are the production companies going to make money from this and lastly, does this sidestep or have any impact of the newly WGA and SGA agreements?
Union debates aside (because they should be taken into consideration, most definitely) – this is a very smart move for the Big Media companies and a great opportunity for consumers.
DVDs aren’t going anywhere, not yet. If they can convince you to pay for something, they will. Same thing goes with iTunes/Amazon purchases, and Netflix rentals, etc. What sites like HULU and TV.com (owned/operated by CBS, the only network not involved in HULU) do is provide consumers with a free way to catch up on shows. Most full episodes disappear after a few weeks so as not to get into a Union scuffle (thanks to that 17 day window crap imposed after the strike), but this is the single most effective weapon in the fight against online piracy. Why would someone take 1-2 hours downloading a jacked rip of a TV episode when they could watch a high-quality stream, for free, of their desired TV show/movie with limited commercial interruption. However, if after all of this you still want to shell out $20 for a DVD, they will happily oblige (they cost pennies to make, and as the strike showed us, they keep most of the profits).
Now you could argue about HULU specifically becoming a Monopoly, but really, it’s just the only successful model. ABC tried to do this on their own, and now have made an about-face for whatever reason (costs too much, not enough traffic, etc). CBS is seeing a big boom with the TV.com relaunch, but Viacom has been with HULU from the start, streaming Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, among other cable properties.
Just because the internet is huge and everyone can have their own piece of the pie doesn’t mean they necessarily should. HULU has proven to be the most effective and the most user-friendly (I read they recently surpassed Yahoo! as the #3 website), so kudos to them. It sure beats watching a Japanese-subtitled version of “Grey’s Anatomy” on YouTube.
And just what do you think IS Disney’s capital in all this?
Their TV Shows and Movies.
All of which produced before 1974 (TV) and 1971 (Movies) will pay the actors NOTHING on HULU if this new SAG deal is ratified.
Nice going…
- Ben There
its a website on the internets. there are infinite websites. a channel on a finite spectrum (i.e. a cable system or over the air broadcasts) is completely different.
the bigger problems are hulu’s poor quality video player and lack of advertising dollars on the site. has no one else noticed they are filling their commercial spots with self-produced PSAs? uh-oh.
disney already has a better setup on abc.com. seems like they’d be better off keeping their content exclusive to that site.
Everything about ABC online is a mess and not user friendly (including ABC News where they don’t tell you that registration is required until after you’ve submitted your comment, so you’ve invested the time and are coerced into registering. ABC News: banned!)
Websites that automatically start playing video when you click on them are obnoxious, hyper-aggressive and immediately banned (CW, Ellen, etc.) Also, you have to download the ABC player.
Hulu is simple and clean. Nothing extra to download. No intrusive video that auto plays. The episodes are organized. They fall short on episodes though, only making a limited number of episodes/seasons available on many shows (even old ones.)
Of course it’s illegal. That’s like Ford and Chrysler selling cars from a single dealership. It would never be allowed to happen.
I think this is the wave of the future. The only thing Hulu is missing is a way to also purchase download the videos on the site as well. I’d pay the $1.99 on the site just so I don’t have to wait for it to stream when it’s trickling around on one of the bad broadband days.
Who’s missing from this now? CBS?
I’d love to go to one place and watch all the shows I want when I want, and like I said if I could also download them for a couple of bucks an episode I’d be willing to do that too.
I agree with “Steve”; what’s the big deal?
I’m sure Disney feels like it made a good purchase, but why in Hell are they doing this?
So they poured more capital into ONE web-site?
Kind of ridiculous in a space the size of the Internet. They should have done the polar opposite. They should have poured that money into making a better ABC.com or Disney.com or in creating some kind of bridge to You Tube or creating a spider network to deliver their content over the widest swatch of the Internet.
Now they’re only get a THIRD of a say on this Hulu board? A THIRD? Not even a majority? That seems really naive.
Media Corporations, unless you can Pirate the ISP’s and take absolute control of those (and we know you’re trying), you’re over.
BTW, “SimplyBilly”, Disney, ABC, NBC and Fox DO NOT create the content, the CONTENT CREATORS do. And the Content Creators can create a web-site any day of the week.
I’m still voting no on the new SAG agreement. Its crap, and if it goes through, it’s the end of the union. Once you give something away it’s hard to get back. So let Disney buy their share of Hulu, I’m going to make sure I get MY share.
I think this is a great thing for Disney! I really believe in the endurance of the Hulu brand, and think it’s going to just explode. What worries me most is that bandwidth is being gobbled up like crazy. I believe I read that there would be an impact in just a couple short years, and really worry about the impact of video on the future of the Internet. There needs to be some major changes to keep up with the growing video online market.