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Hulu May Begin Charging For Video Content
An anonymous reader writes "According to Jonathan Miller, News Corp's CDO, Hulu may soon begin charging subscription fees for some of their online content. News Corp is the parent company of Fox, which owns a huge portion of Hulu. When Miller of Newscorp was asked if Hulu would begin charging for online content during an Interview with Daily Finance, he said that 'the answer could be yes.' He went on to say that he doesn't 'see why over time that shouldn't happen.'"
My initial reaction was to buck against this, but on second thought (and depending on how it's implemented) maybe it wouldn't be that bad. The thing I hate about cable is that there is no "a la carte" option where I can selectively pay for the channels I actually want and not have to pay for the other 90% of the programming that comes in the packages. Depending on how they swing this, if they offer cable-based content as individual subscriptions at prices that are cumulatively less than my current cable bill, it may actually be a better option for me and allow me to cancel cable altogether.
I'm always positive; it's my nature.
Well I think ultimately the issue is this: Everyone sees the writing on the wall. TV shows and movies are going to have to be offered available online, or else people will get it through pirate channels. So the movie studios and everyone are starting to reluctantly jump on board, but they don't have the business model all worked out.
So can they make enough money from advertisements? Can they make enough money from subscriptions, or a la carte sales? Can they work out some kind of combination, or will consumers balk at the idea of paying for a subscription and still watching ads? People already do that with cable (pay for it and still watch tons of ads), so it's not unthinkable.
iTunes is doing the a la carte sales, Hulu is doing ads. If someone else isn't doing subscriptions, someone will probably try it soon.