Hulu Planning on Going to a Subscription Model
By Alexander Grundner |
October 22nd, 2009 
Say ain’t so?! Broadcasting & Cable is reporting that Chase Carey, deputy chairman of News Corp., told the audience at B&C’s On-Screen Summit in New York this past Wednesday that Hulu will switch over to a subscription model as early as 2010, but will leave some content free to view.
“I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value,” Carey said. “Hulu concurs with that, it needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business.”
But the comment from Chase that I don’t fully get — which was posted at TVWeek — is: “It’s time to start getting paid for broadcast content online.” Really? How about all those ads people sit through (typically 4x more than on TV) while watching Hulu content? Well, according BusinessWeek, Hulu has been struggling to book ad campaigns that can keep up with its phenomenal growth and pay similar to what TV networks are getting. In fact, Hulu typically only sells about 60% of its available inventory presently (not a big surprise considering the economy and the slump in Internet ad sales this year).
So what do you say? Would you subscribe to Hulu on a monthly basis if they changed models? Personally, I think a lot people are going to find other outlets to satisfy their needs — a shame, really, since P2P file sharing actually dropped significantly over the past couple years due to these types of services. However, I would consider a Hulu movie rental plan or something similar to Spotify’s subscription / service model, but for movies and TV.
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