The brains behind NBC’s wunderkind video site, George Kliavkoff, is leaving NBC at the end of ‘08. George came to NBC over two years ago as the companies chief digital officer and laid the groundwork for Hulu’s success. Under his watch, Hulu became a digital revenue cash cow for NBC and a legitimate alternative to YouTube for content providers. The site might not post as many page views as YouTube, but with Klavkoff’s guidance, it actually turns a profit which is something Google has been struggling to do after the $1.65 billion dollar purchase.
Kliavkoff is excersing a contract clause that allows him to leave at the end of the year.
“I believe in my heart that this is a best time to start, run, or invest in digital companies and I am very excited about moving on to my next challenge,” Kliavkoff wrote.
It’s hard to imagine another success like Hulu, but even if he turns out something half as good, it will be a hit.
We really ought to applaud Time Warner, I think. A company that owns the rights to broadcast some of the major networks in certain markets, LIN TV, has been playing hardball with the cable operator, demanding more money for access to the channels. Time Warner is all, “But, you can get these channels for free over the air, and many times online, why should we pay you (and raise our subscribers’ prices)?”
So, rather than pony up the cash—so far, at least—Time Warner is telling its subscribers how to watch these networks online for free. Not illegal stuff like The Pirate Bay, but legal avenues like Hulu and ABC’s streaming. A message on affected subscribers TVs informs them to go to Time Warner’s site for more information, including instructional videos and the like.
Now, how this all resolves itself is still up in the air—no one really expects Time Warner to leave the affected networks off its cable systems for good. That said, how greedy of LIN TV. How is it going to mark up the price of something that’s freely available elsewhere? Next thing you know, we’ll all be buying bottled water!
The Roku Netflix Player is an amazing little set-top box that streams Netflix movies, but Roku is hoping for so much more. The company has gone on record, stating that its going to open the platform for other content providers within the coming months. Does this mean we will finally see a quality Hulu or YouTube living room solution? I sure hope so, because with the Roku Netflix box $99 MSRP and if developers get behind it, we might see some killer applications with a low admission cost.
I have a proposal for you TiVo. If you give me Hulu.com access, I will buy your expensive lifetime subscription plan. The implantation has to be better than the lackluster YouTube support though, along with giving full and complete access through a browsable interface too.
You see TiVo, the YouTube access is great, but I really don’t want to watch babies laughing or unicorns prancing on my HDTV. I wanna watch Hulu’s high-def, or even standard-def, content because it was originally meant for, well, TV. You can even leave in the commercials ’cause Hulu on my TV would rock even with them.
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Why do you still pay for cable TV?
That’s what today’s New York Times asks, while noting that as the price of damn near everything increases—food and fuel most notably—so, too, does the price of sitting at home and watching TV. Since 1996, price of a cable TV subscription has risen about 77 percent, to an average of $60 per month. (I pay right around $100 for digital cable and Internet access with Time Warner.) The cable TV industry claims that the price is right in line with inflation, but then you have to ask yourself: just what are you paying for, really?
Wasn’t the Internet (and digital distribution) supposed to change all this?
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Jason Kilar, the CEO of NBC’s web-TV site Hulu, has suggested at NAB that Hulu may be on its way to other net-enabled gadgets. He says they’re “ripe for the Hulu experience,” whatever that is. Sounds like a psychedelic rock band from Japan: The Hulu Experience presents OTOFOKASURENZU. Moving on: Kilar also talked about picking up cult hits like Felicity and Arrested Development, where he wanted Hulu to be the easiest, best, and most legal way to watch the show instead of going to YouTube or the Pirate Bay.
That won’t be a problem for me, though, since I have all of Felicity on Laserdisc. You can borrow it if you want.
Hulu, which has been throwing me the above 500 error all morning as I try to log in with my beta credentials, will be open to the public tomorrow. It’s tallied up about five million viewers in the past month, which is impressive for a site that hasn’t been open to just anyone yet.
It’s got a pretty broad swatch of content partners, too, including Fox, NBC Universal, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros. Television, Access Hollywood, Bravo, CNET, E! Entertainment Television, FEARnet, Fox TV Studios, FX Networks, G4TV, Gamespot, Gamespy, IGN, Lionsgate, National Geographic Channel, NHL, SciFi Channel, The Golf Channel, The Onion, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Twentieth Century Fox Television, Universal Pictures, USA Network, Versus, and World Wrestling Entertainment and a bunch more. Looks like a solid lineup so far.
Hulu [hulu.com]
Hulu, I said! Hulu!
Go ahead and skip the Super Bowl tomorrow, friends: Hulu will have all of the commercials on there for your streaming pleasure after the game, ensuring you don’t miss a single whimsical Monster.com ad or a Miller Lite ad involving two women who fight with a gnome of his secret goldmine of beer. I should be in advertising.
Advertisers are paying $2.7 million for 30 seconds of air time, so let’s all be sure to watch their pitches so it’s worth their while. The gears of Capitalism are oiled by the blood of the masses, after all.
Hulu Plans To Stream Super Bowl Commercials After Game [Underwire]
Let’s say Santa tomorrow brings you Lost on Blu-ray or maybe a Simpsons or Seinfeld boxset or two. By all means, enjoy your new gifts, but don’t forget that the men and women who wrote the stories for those shows—”writers”—are royally screwed over and see very little money as a result of their sale. Yes, the writers strike is still unresolved and even though Conan and Leno and Co. and preparing to go back to work, please try not to forget those who truly made the shows work.
The same thing goes for new services like Hulu: the writers see jack from all that ad money. I recently was “invited” to join Hulu, but I shan’t be participating out of respect for the writers; I won’t be crossing that picket line any time soon. If you just have to see past episodes of The Office, I fully endorse going to the Pirate Bay and grabbing them from there. At least then you’re not earning more money for the greedy producers.
More Strike Info
Where is it written that new Web services must have stupid names? I refer to Hulu, NBC’s online venture designed to get you to pay more for something that’s freely available over the public airwaves and, for now, doesn’t work with your iPod. Goodness, NBC, that really is in the best interests of the consumer!
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Jeez, and you thought Steve Jobs was bad tempered. NBC Universal president Jeff Zucker recently explained why the company told Apple/iTunes to fly a kite. If you guessed greed as being a major factor, well then you have a pulse because that’s what everyone thought.
“We wanted to take one show, it didn’t matter which one it was, and experiment and sell it for $2.99. We made that offer for months and they said no…. Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money. They did not want to share in what they were making off the hardware or allow us to adjust pricing.”
Or, even more direct, NBC Universal was afraid that going from the analog era to the digital era would mean a transformation of revenue from “dollars into pennies.”
Good luck with Hulu, guys. You’ll need it.
Zucker says Apple deal rotten [Variety]
I’m going to withhold my haterage for a bit as I try the new Hulu beta, but so far it’s acceptable at best but not earth-shattering. Here’s what’s going on: NBC Universal and News Corp decided to offer their hot hot content online. What is that hot hot content? Mostly SNL clips, Family Guy episodes, and The Office. However, they do have the Breakfast Club, Heroes, and also a bunch of other stuff you probably don’t want to watch like Simon and Simon. Call it a media garage sale: dig a little and you’ll find a nice old mason jar next to dolls with no eyes and a peed-on tent from 1978.
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Seems NBC Universal isn’t getting along with anyone these days. With no announcement whatsoever, NBC has pulled its channel from YouTube.com. Sources say that NBC will concentrate its efforts on Hulu, a joint venture with News Corp that is going into private beta soon.
Hulu is supposed to be a direct competitor with YouTube that comes directly from the studios with shows. Users will be able to stream or download new programs for a nominal fee. With services like Joost becoming increasingly popular and sites like YouTube and Dailymotion chugging along, NBC really has its work cut out for it this winter.
NBC pulls plug on YouTube channel [Afterdawn]
