Last March NBC Universal and News Corporation announced a joint venture that we initially thought would result in a direct competitor to YouTube. As details emerged, it became clear that the two media conglomerates were not planning a video sharing website for user generated content but rather an online distribution channel for premium video content, including TV shows, movies, and short clips.
In the months following the companies’ initial press release, we gave the joint venture a lot of grief for failing to pick a name for the project, eventually settling on a name – Hulu – that meant “cease” and “desist” in Swahili, copying Google’s mission statement, and receiving not the greatest vote of confidence from NBC Universal’s own chief digital officer.
Behind all of this criticism was a high degree of doubt that NBC and News Corp. were ever going to get Hulu out the door before the joint venture became irrelevant. In September, NBC had even announced a video downloading service that appeared to cannibalize its own joint venture with News Corp. However, this past week Hulu confirmed that it would indeed hit its self-imposed October deadline by launching in private beta on Monday, October 29th. And this past Friday, CEO Jason Kilar and other Hulu representatives demonstrated the new service to us.
While we have not been able to try out the private beta ourselves yet, I was very impressed by the preview of Hulu’s interface and the bulk of its features. Before going into my thoughts about the website, however, I should get some of the many details about Hulu on the table, especially since it’s been months since the original announcement.
Hulu is still a joint venture exclusively between NBC Universal and News Corporation. It exists as a website through which users can stream a collection of TV shows, movies, and short clips on-demand for free without any limits on how many times you can view each video. Hulu also exists as a distribution network of premium content for several partner websites – AOL, MSN, MySpace, Comcast, and Yahoo – that will display Hulu’s videos for free but in their own branded players. In addition to these partnerships, users themselves form a viral distribution network of sorts since Hulu allows its videos to be embedded in any website and shared via email. Hulu makes money in all cases from advertising, which it displays in and around the videos it serves. I’ll go more into the details of embedding and advertising later on.
A couple of things that Hulu is not: a repository of user generated content like YouTube or a download service like iTunes Store. All of the video on Hulu is premium content and users don’t have access to any uploading capabilities. TV shows and movies can only be streamed through Hulu or one of its partners’ Flash players, not downloaded to your desktop or portable media player. While it’s understandable that NBC and News Corp. want to focus exclusively on premium content, it’s a shame that we can’t (yet) download videos from Hulu (either in an ad-supported format or for a fee). Perhaps this is something to look for in the future, although company representatives were mum on whether they had plans for it.
As for the content on Hulu, TV shows will come from Fox and NBC, and over fifteen cable channels including Bravo, E!, FX, SciFi, Sundance, and USA. Movies will come from Fox and Universal, and following a deal signed just this Friday, from Sony and MGM as well. Hulu says many of its short clips will come from independent content providers, and it’s also signing licensing deals with others such as Smithsonian and the WWE. Overall, Hulu’s collection is impressive and we can anticipate seeing it grow even more in the coming months. Representatives say that they will listen to consumer demand to determine which shows and movies to add next. Click here to view a full list of the videos currently in Hulu’s collection.
In terms of availability, Hulu as a website will not be available to the public for another few months. Its collection, however, will be rolled out on its partners’ websites over this coming week so we can expect to see most, if not all, of Hulu’s content on AOL, MSN, MySpace, Comcast, and Yahoo very soon. Just when particular videos will be available through Hulu – and how long we can expect them to stay on Hulu – will vary from video to video. However, as a general rule TV shows will be available on Hulu by midnight Hawaii time after they debut on normal television. As another general rule, Hulu will keep distributing TV shows until five weeks of newer episodes have passed, at which point older shows will presumably just disappear from the site.
This is Hulu’s greatest weakness. Try as it might, it has not yet escaped the programming mentality of broadcast television. Hulu still imposes a schedule of sorts on Web viewers, even if that schedule comes with a five-week window of flexibility. But on the Web, five weeks may not be enough. Appointment TV just doesn’t make sense in a medium where time slots are thrown out the window and the available inventory of videos is counted in the millions. Hulu may be limiting its appeal by not keeping all of its videos up indefinitely (who knows when a particular video clip could take off as the next viral hit?). It also will be interesting to see how this limit affects embedded TV shows, which may just stop functioning after too much time. Similarly, movies and short clips will be added and removed from the site in an undisclosed (or uncertain) manner, although Hulu reps say they will try to add movies that are in demand. Hulu will not only have new releases but older movies as well, and only ten movies will be available to start.
Now for the design and features of Hulu.com itself. First of all, the experience is entirely browser-based so there is no software to install beyond Flash player, which you probably already have. Hulu has done a good job keeping the user interface simple and highlighting the actual content of the site. The homepage highlights a given video and lists the most popular episodes, the most popular clips, and recently added videos. You can also search Hulu’s entire collection from the homepage. Other sections of the site list the available episodes for particular shows and let you browse videos by network/studio, alphabetical order, or popularity. On your user profile page, you can create a video playlist and check your viewing history. Both your viewing history and playlist can be shared via RSS which, in addition to user reviews that you can leave at the bottom of video pages, form pretty much the extent to which Hulu.com incorporates social features.
The videos themselves are streamed at either 480kbps or 700kbps depending on your bandwidth, and Hulu is working with Adobe to provide even higher resolutions through Flash Player 9.2 by the end of the year. Hulu’s video player sports all the basic features we see in embeddable players these days: sharing via email, embedding via HTML, video details, full screen, seeking, and volume. It also has buttons with which users can submit feedback directly to Hulu, pop the video out into its own window, darken the rest of the page for better viewing, and vote the video up or down. Perhaps the coolest feature of the player is the ability to select just a segment of the video to share with friends or embed on your website. Embedded videos have fewer features, but users can still share and embed videos that have already been embedded, which should really help to spread Hulu’s videos virally (and make it less popular to embed low-quality versions hosted on YouTube). But, again, if the embedded video expires or is replaced with new content that the embedder did not choose, that could end up backfiring on Hulu.
Finally, some important information about how Hulu plans to advertise. While we can’t be certain just how advertising affects the user experience without trying Hulu ourselves, Hulu reps say that advertising will be much less intrusive than on actual television. Ads will be served in a variety of ways: banners that display alongside videos, text blurbs that overlay the bottom of videos, and in-video clips that play before, within, and after videos. Shorter videos will tend to have overlays and banner ads, whereas longer videos will tend to play in-video commercials. Hulu says that for longer videos, the total playback time dedicated to advertisements will be drastically lowered, perhaps constituting only 25% of the time you’d spend watching ads on TV. Thus, for every 30 minutes of video, you may only see 2 minutes of ads, whereas on TV you would see 8 minutes. If this is true, then Hulu will certainly be more consumer-friendly than TV. However, that is still probably more commercials than people are used to when watching video on the Web.. We’ll just have to see how intrusive the ads actually are when we play some shows and movies ourselves. Advertisements will be shown in Hulu’s videos whether or not they are played at Hulu.com, and Hulu will power all of the advertising, splitting revenue with its partner sites.
Below are some additional screenshots of Hulu. Keep in mind, we captured these from a Webex session so the rendering quality is relatively poor.
Update: Hulu videos are already available on at least one partner website, AOL. Check them out here If you live outside of the US, however, you may be out of luck. Duncan, who lives in Australia, sees this error message when he tries to view a Hulu video on AOL.
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Mark
great post. Question though: will the content be IP blocked, ie: North America only, or is it fully open?
I don’t think it will be IP blocked, but I didn’t ask them specifically so I’m going by the fact that they didn’t even bring the topic up.
Good writeup Mark!
Duncan – why wouldn’t it be? Everything is blocked it seems from one country to another – I want to watch British tv and buy British music and I can’t either.
That to me is the big barrier.
We cannot let these guys come back into the picture. I’m fine Fox owning Myspace, because it is built on old tenchnoloy and will decease. However, in the coming age, we cannot afford to let these major players back in town.
Goodness I hope Canadians won’t be blocked out… sounds good though, looking fwd to it.
Wow – that looks impressive. This is going to be big competition for SlingBox in some respects – youtube is still going to garner a larger audience, but also less opportunity to convert that audience into actual money. I like Hulu – it seems like a site even my mom could figure out how to use – that is a huge selling point.
Good Job NBC/FOX – I just hope the term “Clown Co.” doesn’t come up again!
Anything that is viewable is downloadable.. especially if its using flash player.
Anyone else surprised by the movie side of this? Wasn’t expecting films to be included.
Still don’t know if I’d sit and watch hour long eps from my desktop. Now if they get Hulu to my TV – that’d be interesting.
I can’t wait to see the Fear Factor episode where Arrington eats crow!
I’m guessing Canadians probably will be blocked. We’re already blocked from pandora, the itunes video store, nbc’s online episodes, many yahoo music videos, etc, etc.
Where is the love?
Many non-techies that I know (my wife + her friends) are huge fans of nbc.com online video. If hulu is anything like nbc.com, it will be a great success (wonder what the page views/unique user count is for nbc.com…).
Best wishes to them.
PS: The reason why hulu is only keeping current videos (only 5 weeks old?) online is probably they will sell DVDs of those shows through existing channels (Target and others) and make money that way.
PPS: I hope their backend data & analytics strategy is well defined. They can do much with it (e.g. gather real feedback on pilot shows….. price DVDs based on user demand for them….. etc.).
So I guess they served kool aid with their web-ex?
Allen (#4)
True, but it doesn’t make it less of a reasonable question. Pandora is blocked, but Last.fm and most of their competitors aren’t. YouTube isn’t blocked as far as I know. If Hulu is about combating privacy then surely it should be open for all.
Holy shizit … this is a random Bob moment but my favourite show (ever) is on Hulu, Picket Fences … like 15 years old, never a hit, and yet its there … power of the internet!
It sounds like it could be really great. I’ll look forward to getting my invite. I signed up fairly early on, so hopefully I’ll get an invite soon. Excellent write up, thanks for the early preview.
It actually drives me crazy when a company blocks by location. One of my favorites is SciFi.com. They show “web episodes” of shows like Battlestar Galactica, which are important to watch before the show premieres, but they are blocked to anyone outside the US.
What’s even better is the show is actually filmed in Vancouver Canada. How is that for sweet irony?
It is frustrating that this is a private beta -
But it will be interesting to see how CBS and ABC follows this
Duncan, its the rights issue. NBC (uni), 20th Century Fox sell rights to air the show to foreign stations in their respective market … how would they like it if I could watch it online while they wait 24 weeks to air it? They wouldn’t … the dists fear they wouldn’t buy the show any more. Its debateable wether Hulu could put shows on – the foreign station might have bought VOD rights too …
I know the foreign nets need to see their business model must change (like the US nets have realized), but if any one is gonna put the shows online for those foreign audiences … it’ll be them! Slowly, that is happening …
Unless Hulu offers branding options or revenue-sharing, I doubt they can convince those foreign nets to let them put the shows up.
Wow. Hulu looks great. Just like I always said.
#14 Duncan – I wrote a post earlier this year about what I want in a tv/video service – and one of my big points is that I/you/all should be able to watch what we want, when we want, from where we want.
And my guess is that YT doesn’t block it because they haven’t been sued yet
this blog post has got to be by far the longest ever in TC’s history
Their site is being updated now, new links just added (contact, about), blog link up but blog not ready.
Wonder if this means much:
Unless otherwise specified, the materials on this Site are presented solely to for use in the United States, its territories, possessions and protectorates. This Site is controlled and operated by Hulu from its offices within the state of California, United States of America. Hulu makes no representation that materials on this Site are appropriate or available for use outside the United States and authorizes no one to do so. Those who choose to access the Site in contravention of the foregoing from outside the United States do so on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws, if and to the extent that local laws are applicable. Software from this Site is further subject to United States export controls. No software from this Site may be downloaded or otherwise exported or re-exported (A) into (or to a national or resident of) Cuba, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Iran, Syria, or any other country to which the U.S. has embargoed goods, or (B) to anyone on the U.S. Treasury Department list of Specially Designated Nationals or the U.S. Commerce Department’s Table of Deny Orders. By using the Site, you represent and warrant that you are not located in, under the control of, or a national or resident of any such country or on any such list.
Hulu looks quite amazing. I’m impressed.
Sounds great, but what a silly idea to only show 5 weeks worth of episodes.
People what buy DVDs are still going to buy them for the improved quality, the added content and the fact that they do not have to stream the episodes through a browser.
It would be much better if you could find all the seasons and episodes for each show and would attract heaps more users that way…hell I might have even used it.
I think it’s safe to assume, given NBC’s involvement, that the content will be IP blocked. It’s been frustrating for me in Toronto not to be able to see recaps or clips off their site. And our local distributors do a very poor job trying to replicate the same grand execution.
I’m quite impressed of this venture by what you have described so far Mark. Great Post
I think somebody has hacked the site’s blog section at http://blog.hulu.com/
naa … thats a holding page for their blogging software.
Great post.
….just when I thought JumpTV was cool. Damm, things are changing fast!
Looks like it is IP blocked, least the AOL Hulu Channel here wont play for me. Wishful thinking I guess.
Bob:
I know and understand that, but it’s also why Europeans and Australians have far higher rates of downloading TV shows than the US does. What was the figure, 70% of the french or something like that?
DIGG This Story!
http://digg.com...s_Very_Good/who
Doesn’t work in Safari. Bastards.
http://video.ao...usr5VLjxseV6ZBX
Yeah but if that WGA strike actually happens and NBC actually has to start paying people for the content they are showing illegally on the internet they will probably bombard users with advertising.
I don’t care how cool this winds up being – if the content can’t be where I want it to be then it is useless. NBC should have their own site, broadcast their content, sell it to cable/satellite providers, sell DVDs, charge tickets to live audiences for all care – but let the content be everywhere. Controlling it always gets them into trouble and irritates the consumer.
TechCrunch puts out a polite post, and Hulu execs pumps fists of joy.
People don’t say “TV is a cultural wasteland” for nothing. I am willing to concede that even in this era of “interactive media”, couch potatoes do exist, and I suppose they must have their weekly doses of such “quality entertainment” as “Andy Parker P. I.”. The question is: if these faithful flocks cannot sit down at the scheduled air times for whatever reasons, wouldn’t they be recording these shows on their Tivos (or whichever their favorite recording devices), since, well, they are put on air for FREE in the first place?
Hulu will have to learn to herd these TV junkies to their computers (if they have one) to make up their viewership number, because the rest of us who would not be caught dead watching these televised garbages are not going to suddenly hear the gospel and click over to Hulu, no matter how slick the interfaces are.
By the way, I still got a couple of bottles of leftover champagne from Joost’s launch party, anybody want some?
I am outside the US as well (in Israel) and it’s IP blocked for me. I get a message saying: “The requested video cannot be displayed in your region”. Damn, thats annoying.
If more videos of US shows where available for me through services like Hulu, I’d be much less likely to seek them out via bittorent. In Israel downloading American shows on P2P is really popular. I’m sure most people (me included) will not mind watching ads in order to view the shows right after they air in the US. People want to watch TV on demand and not wait for months until their local provider decides to purchase shows.
I hope companies like NBC and News Corp. understand that they can push their content world-wide and make much more money even if its not localized (dubbed or with subtitles). All they have to do is localize the ads or use local ad serving partners (there are plenty of those). Same goes for services like Pandora or itunes.
Hulu limit it too … their blog is up (blog.hulu.com) and they include a clip from The Office.
I get this: Unfortunately this video is not currently available in your region or country. Sorry for the inconvinience.
So no “Office” for me in Britain, the irony.
To the non-USA residents: I’m working on a service that will allow you to circumvent these geographic restrictions. Email 4markus at gmail if you want to be on the invite list for the private beta. Cheers.
Very fair and indepth writeup Mark! And it is good to see you didn’t follow it with the same Hulu-hating stance that TechCrunch usually falls into.
It looks a very complete service that I would use in an instant (too bad I am in New Zealand). I actually don’t mind having ads either. As long as I get my content on demand and free then that’s all I ask for!
Great start Mark – keep up the awesome writing.
Doesnt work in India and Hong Kong…Msg is…
“Unfortunately this video is not currently available in your country and region. We apologize for inconvinience”
what a sad thing
100 Million versus 1.7 Billion dollar.
Youtube wins.
Google will have Google TV with Youtube plug-ins. In the future, you can change channels and watch your own TV network 24/7.
As for as Fox & NBC, you can’t create your own show. They have hire actors.
Youtube is planning to create pay video. You can make money too.
People’s Youtube versus Highest paid Actors
I think sitcom actors don’t like to idea competing people’s youtube. They don’t want to get lowest TV/Internet ratings. That’s too bad… :/
Hey just add this to your page: its straight off their blog
Sticking to release windows instead of blowing out all the content on demand is the smartest move they could have done. It seems that they learned from the music industry that now has to face a monopolist (Itunes) who set a market price for music tracks that doesn’t pay the bills. A smart and carefully built up combination of free streaming and paid for Download To Own content will work well for the studios.
can we all say for the ones who live outside the usa that what this is is called Internet Discrimination.. why cant somone outside of the USA watch the fing shows on the sites???.. what is sold in the USA is also sold in Canada so there should be no issue in regards to the ads..
The practice of launching these kind of services accessible for US viewers only (and I have no doubt Hulu will be, like most similar offerings from the big networks) and sticking to limited release windows is seriously going to backfire.
In many countries in Europe, especially in places where the english language is not a major barrier (UK, Netherlands, Scandinavian countries), downloading tv-shows via Bittorrent is rapidly becoming as commonplace as downloading music. I live in a country where broadband is relatively cheap, and where the only alternative to Bittorrent is to wait for weeks/months, only to get the show in low-res (no HD), with annoying subtitles and ofcourse commercial breaks. It’s kind of a no brainer, Hulu or no Hulu. I worked for a network that had the rights to shows like Lost, and even the people working there watched it of Bittorrent instead of their own channel…
For the love of god!
If this isn’t PAY PER POST I don’t know what it is.
The reason you are blocked internationally has nothing to do with Hulu and everything to do with CONTENT RIGHTS. This is omitted from every single write up about these services — Hulu does not own the language around distribution rights — so if you have a problem with what is available talk to the real content owners.
Good thing Mike did’nt write this post, it would have been 80% negative with childish phrases like “hulu is stupid” and “what a dumb name”.
Of course its going to be ip-blocked – that’s a core part of the old school programming mentality that Mark referenced. Controlling distribution scope is something they *can* do, so they *will* do it. As a Canadian I already enjoy zero access to – for example – NBC’s online episodes at NBC.com. Even though they can’t serve me content, they can serve me ads – awesome!
Hopefully hulu can divest itself of these last business model holdouts…