Posts Tagged ‘hulu’

Hulu Prepares Public Option

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

Hulu plans to introduce an initial public offering as early as this fall.

  • Although Hulu gets a lot of traffic, it has had difficulty turning its popularity into profit. It hopes to change things by making an initial public offering.
  • An IPO could have the additional benefits of increasing confidence in the company, possibly luring back content producers like Viacom, which recently removed popular shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report from Hulu.
  • However, with many other companies poised to go public and a lack of confidence in IPOs in general, going public may not solve Hulu’s problems.

Facts & Figures

  • The planned IPO could value the company at more than $2 billion.
  • Hulu reported that it made $100 million last year, but it is also on track to make that amount again in the first half of this year.
  • Hulu produced more than $566 million ads this past June – more than double YouTube’s amount.

Hulu Makes A Grab For Your Wallet

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

Hulu is introducing a paid subscription model in addition to its existing service.

  • Hulu Plus, Hulu’s new subscription service, charges a monthly fee in exchange for offering users a much wider range of episodes and programs, including full seasons of current shows and back seasons of past programs.
  • Hulu Plus will be available on many different devices, including laptops, the iPhone, iTouch, and iPad, Samsung TVs, and Blu-ray players. A deal with Sony to bring the service to the PS3 is expected, and it will also be available on the 360 next year.
  • Hulu Plus’ biggest challenge will be attracting users who are used to getting the same programs for free on regular television.

Facts and Figures

  • The starting subscription fee for Hulu Plus is $9.99 per month.
  • Three of the four major broadcast network owners- General Electric (NBC), Disney (ABC), and News Corp (Fox) – hold equity stakes in Hulu. CBS Corp is the only holdout.

Best Quote

“We believe that any lasting solution to the challenge of making TV show discovery and viewing dramatically easier has to work for all three of our customers, and those are our end users, our advertisers, and our content suppliers.”  Jason Kilar, Hulu Chief Executive

From Bite-Size To Feature-Length

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Video producers are wising up to your extended viewing capabilities.

  • When web videos were first created, the rule of thumb – due to both technological limitations and the perceived attention span of the audience – was that shorter was always better.
  • Today, many creators of Web content, aided by technological advances, are proving that people are perfectly willing to watch longer videos if they’re of good quality.
  • The creators of online videos are acting increasingly like television producers, using the low production costs and the watch-whenever flexibility of the Web to distribute the online equivalent of TV shows.

Facts & Figures

  • According to comScore, the average Internet user in the United States watches 97 online videos a month.
  • An estimated one in four Internet users visits Hulu at least once a month.
  • In 2008, 24 of the 25 most popular videos on Blip.tv, a Web series distributor, were shorter than five minutes. Thus far in 2009, the average video is 14 minutes long.

Best Quote

“Historically it has been very much a clip-based experience online. We believe we are moving into a transition period where more of that viewership is going toward long-form video.” – Jon Gibs, Vice President for Media Analytics at Nielsen

Hey Hulu Addict, Wanna Watch That Show On Your Big Screen?

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

This write-up explores the changing ways in which people watch TV and get their news, and what that means for businesses in the industry.

  • Cable-television companies struggle to respond to our growing interest of watching television online. The companies could easily sell us web connection, allowing us to choose exactly which programs we want to watch, but they won’t because of the consequences.
  • These companies make money by selling packages of channels, though we end up only watching a small handful. That’s why they’ve resisted the trend so strongly. Unfortunately for them, they may already be too late.
  • A slew of start-ups and savvy electronics makers have stormed the scene, giving us a number of new options to bring internet television into our living rooms.

Facts & Figures

  • The average American household pays $700 a year for over 100 channels of cable television but watches no more than 15.
  • New technology bringing internet television to the living room includes: a few new TV sets come with Ethernet sockets to connect to the internet, video game consoles can stream films and TV shows from Netflix, and specialized boxes like Vudu, Roku, and Boxee can access thousands of videos online and connect them to your TV.
Comments Off