Last April, Hulu made the major announcement that The Walt Disney Company had acquired an equity stake in the online video site. Up until that point, Hulu’s original investors News Corp and NBC were the site’s primary content providers, making for an impressive but still somewhat limited selection. The Disney deal opens doors to an entirely new library of content for Hulu to distribute, ranging from movies from the Disney library to prime-time ABC shows, but for the last two months we’ve had to wait for the catalog to make its way online. Tonight, we’re beginning to see the fruits of the deal.
Beginning this evening Hulu now features Grey’s Anatomy, a very popular prime-time medical drama that’s sure to be a crowd-pleaser. The episode selection for the show is pretty sparse right now — you have five episodes from the most recent fifth season to choose from (with large gaps in between each) but we may well see the selection rotate through the summer. Hulu plans to release more ABC shows over the next two weeks, which will include Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Scrubs, and I Survived a Japanese Game Show.
The news may be just the shot in the arm Hulu needs to carry its strong traffic numbers through the summer. The site had seen very impressive growth all year, in no small part due to its Super Bowl and subsequent star-studded ad campaign. But last month came word that the site’s growth was dropping off, and the number of unique visitors to the site actually decreased between March and April. Hulu hasn’t been around long enough to figure out exactly what to attribute this to — it could well be television’s seasonal surges in popularity or possibly a saturated market. In any case, the site is still extremely popular, but I’m sure they’d like to keep that arrow going up and to the right.
yes! finally some decent shows there.
yes! finally some more shows to watch!
Hulu can easily keep that arrow up and to the right if they negotiate better deals with existing content producers.. I watched It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia regularly on Hulu until FX cut the availability to 5 episodes at a time. I stopped watching on Hulu and now I occasionally watch via torrent. Ad revenue squandered because FX thinks that they can squeak out a few more DVD sales.
I watched several shows regularly on hulu the last season or so, but they’re not showing during summer and there’s nothing else interesting playing right now.
If anything I’d figure it’s the same for other viewers, no new content to watch other than re-runs that everbody has seen.
Any chance the drop between March in April has anything to do with Hulu cutting off a whole bunch of its viewers (myself included) with the boxee debacle? Seems pretty likely to me. I know I watch Hulu MUCH less often now that its pretty spotty on AppleTV/boxee.
I doubt it. Boxee is cool, but I don’t think it has nearly enough users yet to have that large an impact on their growth.
I so wish Hulu went International.. I realise that television rights differ from country to country, I just wish there wasn’t that bottleneck…
*sighs*
Hulu is great, and adding more content will only help grow the site.
Couldn’t the drop of just be the normal cycle of new episodes in the typical TV season? Don’t they go on break in March or April before coming back for May Sweeps?
No Lost??? That is a major blow to the potential amount of viewers Hulu could possibly gain.
They need more content content content!
I mean, I’ve dropped off usage partially because some shows I watch there are off the air till next season (the office, 30 rock, family guy).
Maybe if they worked on putting up more episodes while we wait for the new ones, they’d get more people watching still.
All of the lost seasons are available at ABC.com in HD which looks *much* better than the shit quality on Hulu (comparatively).
Put me in the “it’s the re-runs, stupid” camp. I haven’t been to Hulu in a good two months since the shows I’ve watched went on summer hiatus. Maybe a super deep archive would draw me back though. Also, they need to have Lost when it comes back – and I would love it, but doubt, if they got some ESPN content. Even a daily sportscenter would do.
Yipee! That’s amazing!
that’s nice. too bad ‘grey’s anatomy’ is awful!
it is unwatchable. season one had some nice moments and then it crashed as fast as i have seen a supposedly top show. the show is now just a reason for the fray to make music.
hulu is comtenter ……more comtents for site..!!