The Americans rave about it. Europeans can’t see it and the UK no longer expects it to suddenly arrive. That’s the Hulu US web site, where top US TV shows can be viewed, currently for free, though shortly it is expected to introduce services with a monthly charge. But this will not be seen in the UK.
UK national newspapers this week were all touting inside sources which say the deal is off. Hulu probably expected way too much money for the service over here, which it was supposed to be launching in connection with a number of British broadcasters including ITV.
Hulu execs are cited as saying that they could not get any traction in the British TV market and that it does not match their business expectations. That might be because the UK market already has iPlayer, ITV player and Skyplayer and 4oD, all PC delivered streaming services, each with millions of existing customers. Hulu would not have been able to get access to the shows it offers in the US without local broadcasters waiving their right to veto the use of any shows they already pay to carry over here ‘ so local broadcasters will have seen this as a threat to their already advanced internet TV services.
Apparently the same conclusion was reached in discussions between Hulu and Channel 4 and Channel Five, because it’s quite clearly better to have 100% of something you control, than minority ownership and no control, where someone else sells the advertising ‘ which is what Hulu was demanding. Both here and in the US, broadcasters tend to sweeten their traditional TV advertising by adding catch up online adverts alongside, in a packaged deal. With Hulu separate that would not have been possible, and this fact will also threaten Hulu in the US at some point, we suspect.
Hulu is co-owned by News Corp, NBC Universal and Disney, which would have made Sky a more likely partner in the UK since it is controlled by News Corp. Talks however have been going on for 9 months and most recently focused on a deal with ITV, which would have owned shares in Hulu UK.
Clearly this is going to come up time and time again, and the French and German markets, the biggest in Europe alongside the UK, are just as unlikely to reach terms, given that they use less US TV than we do and see less need for a Hulu class service. They also have online catch-up TV services of their own.
Hulu apparently still thinks it can launch in the UK at some point, but given that most popular US content is already spoken for over here, it’s almost impossible for it to lead with the same top line content ‘ which means a launch would be pointless. Hulu in the US has more than 10 times the traffic of the BBC iPlayer, and to shoot for a minority market share over here would make no sense.