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Disney-Hulu Deal Is Ominous For YouTube

Posted by Soulskill on from the business-models-are-for-wimps dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Dow Jones reports that Hulu scored a big victory when Disney agreed to take a nearly 30% stake in Hulu and put full episodes of its ABC TV shows on the site, enabling users to see shows like Lost, Scrubs, Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives for free. Disney views the move as a way to reach a new audience that isn't coming to the network's own website. Although the ABC.com website has attracted regular viewers of its shows, Hulu offers the opportunity to tap into a new group of viewers. Now Google is under mounting pressure to add more professional content to YouTube in order to attract more advertisers. According to Dow Jones' Scott Morrisson, the equity structure of the Disney-Hulu deal suggests that content creators want greater involvement in online distribution than Google has offered with YouTube. 'Content providers don't want to give (YouTube) content because the advertisers aren't there yet,' said Edward Jones analyst Andy Miedler."

4 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Digging their own graves? by mister_playboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I am eager to see the old cable subscription model fail, so we can actually have some decent internet speeds here in the US. If these companies have trouble monetizing this new approach, that won't exactly break my heart, though.

    --
    Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
  2. Most viewed debacle by computerMechanic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The major downside to this deal IMHO is the disappearance of the most viewed categories from both youtube and google video. Now we have the Most Popular categorie which consists of fred, disney, american idol and the like. I miss being able to look up a list of most viewed, by country and date.

  3. defective by design by kingduct · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I tried using Hulu. It was designed not to let me press the pause button and let the entire show download over my cheap DSL (my usual practice with any flash videos that are higher bandwidth than my internet). It would only buffer the next several seconds, I assume to prevent me from downloading the entire file. I never went back and had to go back to using other sources of television that exist online...

  4. Not a solution by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    http://www.youtube.com/shows http://www.youtube.com/movies

    Youtube sucks just as much as Hulu sometimes:
    This video is not available in your country
    That was for "The Outer Limits", "Married with Children", "The Addams family", and "Terry Jones' Medieval Lives". There may be some shows available in my country, but I gave up trying at that point.

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire