Hulu Pays $200M For Providence Equity’s 10% Stake & Weighs Big Changes: Reports

COMMENTS (6)

• Here in the UK, we do not have access to Hulu. But I’ve noticed severe reactions on the dev front from American networks. Millennial blogs being bought by the bushel. A new focus on online distribution (home of the Millennials). When your business falls 10% year* — as network television has, and will continue to do — you do your best to grab the replacement viewers, those “down the line”.

  This is not an “if” situation any longer, it’s a “when”. You can add as many online adverts as you want. People will simply click to another site whilst they play in the background.

  So, start thinking in radio terms, advertisers, as most of your television/online/gobbledygook buys will be heard (possibly), but almost never seen…

  Have a think on that.

  * apologies to NBC

  Comment by P. Sullivan — Saturday October 13, 2012 @ 12:59pm EDT  Reply to this post

• They can kill Hulu, but that doesn’t mean we will be coming back to cable (whether they scramble the basic channels or not). It turns out that when you give up cable even once, you realize it was never any good–and it certainly isn’t going to get any better. It also turns out that you can do a lot of things with $80/month that are more enjoyable than reruns of the Bachelor 15 and NCIS.

  Comment by Jon — Sunday October 14, 2012 @ 12:27am EDT  Reply to this post

• This Hulu “project” has been illustrative of the deep seated fears that have been internalized in the industry. Namely — job loss, change, lack of dominance. If your goal is simply to be on top, instead of caring about quality, and creative excellence — anything can be seen as a threat to your business “model”. What I’m saying is that the network’s reactions to Hulu say far more about what personally troubles them, than any sort of true understanding of the “customer”. Easily one of funniest truths of this new marketplace.

  Comment by Whit — Sunday October 14, 2012 @ 12:13pm EDT  Reply to this post

• Man, these networks are getting old…

  Comment by Good luck and good bye. — Sunday October 14, 2012 @ 12:17pm EDT  Reply to this post

• Here’s what people want: streaming TV and movies, broad content library (movies and TV) so that pretty much everything you want is in one place, no ads, reasonable price, reasonably soon after movie/show debut. People already get this, for a *very* reasonable price (free) and sometimes even before the debut, via piracy but some folks are wlling to pay, whether because of honesty, desire for safety or convenience, or sheer force of habit.

  Netflix is cloest to having this business, but their streaming library is not nearly complete enough. This is a business waiting for someone to build it. What’s not acceptible is bouncing around from Netflix to Hulu to Amazon to who knows where else to cobble together the library you want. Who has time for that?

  Comment by sffan — Sunday October 14, 2012 @ 12:46pm EDT  Reply to this post

• One can not forget that we’re talking about BILLIONS of dollars. These old network guys may be out of touch, cowardly and stupid – but they do have a hell of a lot of responsibility on their shoulders. So it’s only natural for them to be scared and react – rather than be progressive and strategic. The audience is leaving and I can say, that I’ve been without cable for 2 years and I don’t miss it at all – and I love watching filmed entertainment. I can find pretty much everything I want to see online, via Hulu, Amazon or Itunes. As someone here wrote – it’s not a matter of if but when, and the when is now. If these men of big media were smart they’d take action to start building/rebuilding/repairing the infrastructure for this new online world. Short term quarterly thinking is a losers model. Long term is where it’s at… I’m surprised Buffet or Bransen haven’t whipped it out on the table and gobbled Hulu up at a bargain basement price. I imagine that with the control of a lot of advertising dollars someone would be able to work out long term satisfactory content deals that would benefit everyone involved.

  Comment by walkingonsunshine — Sunday October 14, 2012 @ 2:34pm EDT  Reply to this post