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ABC/Disney Considering Hulu

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the step-in-the-right-direction dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Walt Disney Co and Hulu.com have restarted talks over offering shows from Disney's ABC television network on the online video distributor owned by NBC Universal and News Corp, paidContent.org reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources." The real question to me is when will they stop screwing around with Boxee users?

4 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What they really need to do by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not only that, but with an online "on-demand" system, you can really see which shows are successful, you don't have to rely on brain-dead network executives and "surveys". Pay checks can also be directed at shows which are actually watched and not garbage that keeps sucking money until they are cancelled.

    Also, said brain-dead network executives can't try to kill shows by shuffling them around anymore.

  2. Re:So? by russotto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sooner or later, someone is going to come up with a better model to get me content I WANT to see without forcing me to wade through shit I've made it clear I don't want to be bothered with.

    The problem with that is this model will either require
    1) Direct payment from you
    or
    2) You to be a free-rider on a system supported by others
    or
    3) People willing to pay to get you to watch what you want to watch.

    1) is tough because nobody wants to pay for TV. 2) is not sustainable. 3) is a pipe dream.

  3. Hulu commercials == Cable in the early 80s by fprintf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hulu is funded through advertising. On the radio a few weeks ago, I think on NPR's marketplace, http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/12/hulu/ they had an interview with Eric Feng, founder of Hulu. In it, he said that advertising is where the money is and that it is likely that the amount of commercials/ads shown per episode is likely to increase. It was either him or someone else on the program (I can't listen to the program right now) that said Hulu is likely to follow the same path as cable did - starting with very little commercials, and using that as a selling point, and then eventually transitioning to 7+ minutes of advertising per half hour as Hulu became indispensable.

    I like Hulu, but I do not believe they operate under some "do our work for the benefit of the users" mantra. At some point they will do the analysis on ads vs. user dissatisfaction and will settle at a balance point.

    --
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  4. Re:The problem... by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How so? 90% of users wouldn't know what a torrent was, and of the remainder how many would know how to configure their router so they could use it? Use WinRAR, VLC etc.? Even know how to install them?

    And even then you've done that mess it's not streaming.. you've got to download first. Screw that. Open browser, goto www.hulu.com, watch show. Torrent just can't compete with that.