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Hulu To Require Viewers To Have Cable Subscriptions
The NY Post reports that Hulu, the video streaming service with over 30 million users, has plans to force those users to prove they have a subscription to cable or satellite TV if they want to keep watching. Quoting:
"The move toward authentication is fueled by cable companies and networks looking to protect and profit from their content. The effort comes as entertainment companies continue to face drastic shifts in home viewing habits. Overall spending on home entertainment edged up 2.5 percent to $4.45 billion in the first quarter as a surge in digital streaming — which rose more than fivefold to $549 million — offset a continuing collapse in video rentals, according to Digital Entertainment Group. ... Hulu racked up some $420 million in ad revenue last year and is expected to do well in this year’s ad negotiations. But the move toward authentication, which could take years to complete, will make cable companies happy because it could slow cord-cutting by making cable subscribing more attractive."
People use Hulu because I don't have cable.
I don't know about anyone else... but I use Hulu and I had no idea whether or not you had cable.
How anyone over at Hulu could think that this will work out for them is beyond me.
Hulu is partly owned by Comcast. Does that answer your question?
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
It seems that allowing cable companies to purchase content providers wasn't a good idea after all. Oh wait, that's what everyone except the FCC said already.
The point of the FCC* is to protect the business models of the incumbents from the free market. They pay well for that. What else would you expect, allowing competition?
* substitute your favorite government agency
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
If corporations are people, then this is a suicide note from Hulu. I recommend mandatory confinement to a mental ward of a hospital for 72 hours of observation. Since Hulu, as a corporation is actually a gestalt entity of the board of directors and officers, they must all be placed in the same mental ward so that the gestalt entity can be observed.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Too bad. Because now they have neither from me, and now they have me actively telling other people to cancel.
Yeah, good luck with that. They don't call it the "idiot box" for nothing.
Oops. Guess Comcast didn't think that through!
I'm sure they have a 200-page financial forecast backing this one. You lose, megalo-corporation wins. News at 11 (oh, wait, no they own the news).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Hilariously my favorite usenet provider only wants a few dollars more a month than Hulu Plus was.
Guess who's getting my cash, now!?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Dead busines model + voodoo economic theory = Zombie Hollywood!
All those bad zombie movies were actually the last few living screenwriters trying to warn us!
It's not a zombie; you can kill a zombie by removing the head and/or destroying the brain.
These media assholes are more like the mythical hydra: with every head you remove, 2 grow back in its place.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
>piracy is all that's left
No, there's one other option: Turn off the TV and go outside.
Bark less. Wag more.
You speak geekdom blasphemy! Fresh air, sun, exercise? Are you insane?
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Nothing will ever get me to subscribe to cable again guys.
Not even if a DOCSIS ISP were to bundle a free TV subscription with all home Internet plans? The "line fees" that DOCSIS and DSL ISPs charge for not bundling the ISP's other services are close to this.
even if princess came to your house with free cupcakes, woudl you subscribe??? example ad infinitum?
Not in a box.
Not with a fox.
Not in a house.
Not with a mouse.
I would not watch it
here or there.
I would not watch it anywhere.
I would not watch cable TV.
I do not like it, no-sir-ee.
-- QED
masturbate to a nudie pic of Rosie O'Donnell with a fistful of broken glass soaked in gasoline
According to some rule I heard about there is a website for that...
15teenthed.
Sorry, the days of me paying for commercials is gone, This business model is no more! It has ceased to be! 'Its expired and gone to meet 'is maker!
'Its a stiff! Bereft of life,it rests in peace! If they don't pass laws and monopolize it'll be pushing up the daisies!
'Is sales attraction processes are now 'istory! It's off the table!
Its kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!!
THIS IS AN EX-BUSINESS MODEL!!
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
I know, right? We could all just sit in the middle of an empty living-room and meditate on the mysteries of pocket lint. Silly humans, wanting entertainment when we have paint drying and grass growing all around us!
So true, because, as everybody knows, TV is the only possible form of entertainment. One feels so sorry about all the people who lived before TV was invented the invention of TV, and had to watch pocket lint competitions LIVE!.