The new Hulu service from NBC and Fox began operating this week, sending video to beta users and to its internet portal partners, Microsoft, AOL, MySpace, Yahoo and Comcast.
Comments from those that have been put on the beta are mostly negative, but also confused. As we said in our September coverage on the announcement of the service, is it a YouTube, an iTunes or a Joost?
Well it doesn’t rely on UGC, that’s quite clear from blogging comments made, but then again it is arguable that YouTube is only ostensibly about that, and is actually about mainstream video, because so much of it is posted there. Hulu certainly isn’t really a place where video can be downloaded to a portable device like iTunes.
It does appear that this is a direct threat to Joost, which is anyway in a little disarray, with low numbers of users and a failure make an impact at launch. So this is really advertising supported free video, and this week it became obvious that other broadcasters had jumped on the bandwagon with news that Sony and MGM are offering ad supported shows to it.
If Hulu wants a clean sweep of the studios, and it doesn’t look like it will need that to be any kind of success, it will need to drag in players like Viacom’s Paramount and Disney.
CEO of Hulu, Jason Kilar, made the point that ‘You will not find this lineup from top to bottom anywhere else,’ which means it has the best shows from the best of several broadcasters and content producers. Our only question is what will happen if this starts replacing viewers who are watching the same content on their own respective web sites? Isn’t that robbing Peter to pay Paul?
Meanwhile national US broadcast network ABC, owned by Disney continues to focus on its own site, while CBS is working with AOL and Joost.
The system plays video in the browser and offers advertising banners above the video screen and overlays on top of it, as well as showing 15 second long interruptive video commercials within programming.
Hulu also announced it has just closed a $100 million investment from private equity firm Providence Equity Partners, and now already employs 100 people.