Rumors of Hulu's Subscription Plans 224
whychevron found a story discussing Hulu's plan to offer subscriptions. The rumor is that $10 a month will grant paying users the ability to get episodes older than the last five, while the current five episodes remain ad-supported. This starts pitting Hulu even more squarely against iTunes for anyone who watches more than a few shows a month.
Re:I'd pay it (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd pay for it if they made it available outside the US.
Ads (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'd pay it (Score:5, Insightful)
Completely agreed - I'd pay it too, if they'd put it on my Roku. I love Roku and all the Netflix and Amazon content (and some of the other content is okay, but not exactly worth much), but it would be *the* killer set-top box with Hulu content.
However, the problem as I understand it though isn't that Hulu are being dicks, it's that the licensing terms they've been able to negotiate simply don't allow them to put content on set-top boxes or even make it easy for set-top boxes to access that content.
I just don't think big media is going to let that content go to Roku or any equivalent set-top box. I mean, you'd have people canceling their subscriptions to cable right and left if that started happening. You can do it now, but you need an HTPC setup and to navigate to Hulu via a browser, and that's not quite mass-market.
Netflix has a better plan for only $8.99 (Score:1, Insightful)
Netflix has streaming available with any of their plans including the $8.99 one disk at a time. Granted some series are only available on Hulu, but Netflix has a good selection of movies that Hulu doesn't.
Re:Meh. (Score:1, Insightful)
In today's America, the wants and desires of consumers are irrelevant. Consumers do not define value, either. Corporations dictate what the consumers want, and then provide it to the consumers at the prices that the corporations find desirable.
Re:Cheaper and better than cable (Score:3, Insightful)
You forget that the cable companies are the ISPs. They would either raise their ISP rates so it would be just as profitable for them for you to get your shows through the Internet band as through the cable TV band or they would block Hulu.
International Hulu? (Score:5, Insightful)
The real news we are all waiting for is for Hulu to start offering world-wide viewing.
In the pre-internet world where movies and TV programs were received by radio or cable or seen in a theater or rented on a videocasette it made sense for the rights holder to subdivide the rights based on location -- to license separately in each country. But this makes no sense for internet broadcast. You would think that in the future rights owners would exclude internet rights from the licenses which are exclusive in a geographical region (thus allowing services like Hulu to license world-wide internet rights), but this doesn't seem to be happening. Instead, the internet broadcast rights are included in the country-specific deals, which generally means that potential viewers outside the US get no service.
By the way -- this is why I feel no compunction about downloading "pirated" versions of shows that are not available in my country. If the studio refuses to sell me a product, they can't complain when I don't pay for it ...
Backwards (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't care about getting episodes older than the last five. I care about getting current episodes without having to wait a week. That, I would probably pay for.
I also can't help but wonder if they're going to be including ads on the subscription model or if they think the access alone is worth 10 bucks.
Re:I'd pay it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'd pay it (Score:3, Insightful)
Hulu has 3 to 4 ad breaks during a 30min show and each break is usually only 30 seconds long (a few are 15s and a few are 60s). So, if the show you're going to watch isn't worth two minutes of your time, then you might want to reconsider watching it in the first place.
I for one applaud Hulu for the way they handle the ads. Minimal, non-invasive advertising means that they are one of only a few sites that are on my AdBlock and NoScript white-lists.
Re:Meh. (Score:2, Insightful)
Their business model is "letting people see their stuff, in ways they profit from". If you throw a cog in those works, illegally, you shouldn't be surprised to get sued.
Re:I'd pay it (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a shame though. If they managed to partner with some of these services I'd happily pay $10 a month for it. It beats the heck out of a $60 per month satellite bill.
... and that's why you won't see it happen. Hulu is run by the TV networks, and the TV networks still want the money from Cable/Satellite. If they make their content available online, it might become a competitive market. Instead of charging $10/month on Hulu, they'd rather lock you into paying $100/month on cable.
Re:I'd pay it (Score:3, Insightful)
You pay a hundred bucks a month for cable?
Just for cable? Without internet, or phone or anything else?
Wow. I'm glad I don't live in your market. I don't even pay that much with Internet service bundled in.
Get back to me (Score:4, Insightful)
... When they properly support my phone and my 64 bit linux box. Oh, and allow boxee clients. Then we will talk about me paying them for a service that I can actually use.
Re:I'd pay it (Score:4, Insightful)