Round One Goes To Hulu

Wired has a great account of the birth and growth of Hulu, the front running Web TV platform from Fox and NBC.  The article's interest comes from its focus on business issues and how seemingly resolute, dyed-in-the-wool thinking was quickly overcome.  "Kilar (aka Mr Hulu) won their (studio execs) support by explaining the obvious: In a world of limitless choice, 10-year-olds are no longer going to race home to catch a TV show. Admitting that fact means surrendering the scheduling power the networks have always enjoyed and putting a lot of their profits at risk. But Kilar focuses on the opportunity. If you were a network exec, he says, playing with his cheese-and-veggie scramble, "and I told you here was a tool that enabled your content to be shared, to be forwarded, to make your audience your most powerful marketing vehicle—it would be music to your ears, right? This is a tectonic shift, and what it does is allow network heads to find the audience they always should have had but couldn't reach."  Compare this to the story of Joost, which for a long time looked like it was going to be the Web TV service to beat, but suffered from the decision to use a client application rather than go straight-to-browser and not having direct access to the studios and their legal know-how.  It also, ironically, may have suffered from feeling it had no, or very little, competition.  Whereas Hulu seems to have been a response to a very significant threat in the shape of YouTube.  This has left Joost playing catch-up and needing to push increasingly ambitious schemes such as Live TV.  But for now, Hulu has had the last word, due to its radical outlook rather than radical technology, as illustrated by this quote:  "Hulu is weeks away from unveiling a tool that lets users embed the Hulu service itself into their Web site. Soon you'd be able to stick all of online television into your blog. Finally, after decades of dictating what we can watch and when, the networks would be reduced to a Web widget, functioning at the user's whim. Just as it should be."

Comments

[Charles Edward Frith]

So in effect timing is no longer an issue and the context is quality of content in every sense of the word. I was thinking about the younger generation today after reading that patience (or propensity to put up with slow service) is diminishing and it's a trend that I like. I think waiting is good for intangibles but for services that will make revenue it's tedious. I just walked out of a restaurant after not getting my snack while others after me did, so maybe it's a bit fresh with me.

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Charles, Hulu seems to prove that the old guard's ability to deliver Quality is of real value as they go up against the unlimited Choice offered by Torrent services such as Pirate Bay, which has reached an amazing scale...

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