Hulu About To Charge Customers

[marmar]

from 24/7WallStreet:



Hulu About To Charge Customers
Posted: June 25, 2010 at 5:17 am


Hulu, the premium internet content service, is about to charge customers for access to certain TV shows and movies, perhaps the most important experiment ever to test whether consumers are willing to pay for full-length professionally produced video sent to their PCs. Data from comScore showed that in May, Hulu delivered 1.1 billion streams, second only to YouTube which delivered 14.6 billion. The average number of videos viewed on Hulu by viewers was 22, also second to YouTube which had 101. YouTube videos are often produced by amateurs, so the comparison is not entirely useful.Hulu is also about to sign a deal with Sony (NYSE: SNE) to stream content to the PS3.

“The popular video site is working to finalize agreements with content owners and hoping to wrap them up in the coming days”, according to The Wall Street Journal. Hulu currently relies on paid advertising to support its business. The new Hulu Plus service will charge customers about $10 a month.

The odds against Hulu are high. It was late into the VOD market. Cable companies and satellite TV services dominate it, and telecom firms such as Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T (NYSE: T) are aggressively marketing fiber-to-the-home which includes TV service, broadband, and telephone service.

Another enemy to Hulu’s model is the current move by smartphone companies to stream premium content over 3G wireless networks to cellphones. The advent of 4G should make that model even more powerful as will the new better resolution screens.

The greatest threat to Hulu is probably the ongoing “success” of pirated content. File sharing is rarely talked about anymore, but it is damaging video entertainment as badly as music sharing did to the record companies.

Hulu simply has too many fences to clear. The service has little chance of being a success.

-- Douglas A. McIntyre


http://247wallst.com/2010/06/25/hulu-about-to-charge-customers/#more-71805

[AsahinaKimi]

1. I have checked their movie selection...

Unless they add more titles, they are going to have a serious problem. Most of the movies seem like stuff you would expect to see featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Laughable at best. B grade movies, most from the early 50's and 60's.

The Tv shows like episodes of Star Gate, Battlestar Galactica , Family Guy, The Simpsons, The Dating Guy, Naruto, and other programs might get some people interested enough to maybe pay, but frankly, the selection is really terrible. They do have some documentaries, many of which, are right wing. (example: Michael Moore Hates America..)

All I can say to them is Good luck, because I am betting that they will probably drive people away from their site in search for something far, far better.