Hulu To Require Viewers To Have Cable Subscriptions 648
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."
In that case... (Score:5, Insightful)
This just in (Score:2, Insightful)
Hulu hemmorages customers after initial roll-out of authentication scheme.
Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Of all the options available, the one we hate the most and absolutely will not do under any circumstances is give the consumers what they actually want and will happily pay for.
no. (Score:5, Insightful)
This doesn't make cable subscriptions more attractive.
All it does is make hulu less attractive than it already is.
Two words (Score:5, Insightful)
Good luck with that. (Score:5, Insightful)
No. (Score:5, Insightful)
If it happens.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not related (Score:5, Insightful)
Totally not related to those same ISPs moving to cut people off from the internet with some special new method of piracy detection and enforcement that is extrajudicial... and being implimented only a few months from now.
It's not like this is coordinated or anything. Collusion doesn't exist. Enhance your calm, Citizen.
Sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just when you think even some branch of the industry gets it, they demonstrate they don't. It's hard to think of an industry more dedicated towards giving customers what they don't want, and doing everything in their power to make sure that more money slips through their fingers.
You see, Congress, this is what happens when you try to legislate an extinct business model back to health. You don't get better companies, you don't protect jobs or an industry, you just get lazy, stupid dinosaurs who continue to fecklessly drive towards the chasm.
Up Next: How to alienate your customers (Score:5, Insightful)
They do realize that people use Hulu because they do not want to buy cable at home.
It's pretty simple.
I know a lot of people who pay for Hulu and would probably pay more.
But they won't buy cable to watch Hulu. Not a chance. They'll take their business elsewhere.
Oh, well. If they are strict about this authentication, a number of people will simply find a new competitor of theirs. No big loss (except to the cable companies)
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
People use Hulu because I don't have cable. Isn't that the point?
The move toward authentication is fueled by cable companies and networks looking to protect and profit from their content.
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.
Re:But... WHY? (Score:5, Insightful)
To read an online magazine, you must also have a snail mail subscription?
There's nothing about this that makes any sense. It's stupid, ultimately self-destructive and only proves that the big media companies don't get it, and likely never will.
Break 'em up please (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:no. (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought I was going to have to keep cable and HBO to watch Game of Thrones. But I thought about it more, and I can wait a year in order to avoid writing and mailing a damn check every 30 days.
Cable is dead. Avoid it for a month or two and when you return it feels like you are watching a video version of the spam inbox.
Re:Good luck with that. (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed. I tolerated your ads. I won't tolerate this.
Bye-bye!
Where's the evidence? (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone else on the net seems to point to the article in the NY Post (not exactly known for its careful fact-checking) and the Post article talks about Hulu 'taking its first steps' without a single mention of what those steps are. No other news stories I can find in the last several days talk about any changes occurring to Hulu's model (other than more original programming) or the Hulu user experience. So what the hell is the Post talking about, exactly? What evidence is there — beyond some editorial negative-wishcasting — that anything like this is going on?
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
I know. I'd even be okay with buying episodes of shows as they air, not to coincide with some poorly done DVD release (hello, HBO) if they exist at all. In lieu of sane options, piracy is all that's left.
The cabal of advertisers, cable companies, and television networks are all so worried about losing viewers that they've decided to strap their sinking ships together. Because that's a grand idea. It worked very well for the music industry. Who wants to rock out to my Nickelback CDs? After that we can watch a movie on my DIVX (not DivX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX [wikipedia.org]) player!
Re:What lawful competitor? (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is not a lawful competitor, it will be an illegal competitor.
That's how the market works, really.
A very small segment of people are *really* that worried about the legality of copyright enforcement, unless the penalties are sufficiently draconian and enforcement is sufficiently publicized so they hear about it on a weekly basis. They're trying hard (the media companies) to make that reality, but you can't simply legislate that people buy some stupid wire in order to do some unrelated task. It's inane and everyone realizes that, which makes the likelihood of this "enforcement' succeeding close to nil, in my opinion.
Re:Another App removed from my devices (Score:4, Insightful)
P.S. i run Tivo + antenna too.
Re:no. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Or Netflix streaming, which while it has spotty coverage it will still have higher than 0% of recent shows.
Nothing will ever get me to subscribe to cable again guys. Sell me your content in some sane way on the internet and I'll pay, but never a cable subscription.
Unclear on the concept (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But... WHY? (Score:5, Insightful)
's stupid, ultimately self-destructive and only proves that the big media companies don't get it, and likely never will.
It will be an interesting case study of whether capitalism still works in America. If capitalism works, we'll be saying "the former big media companies didn't get it, and that's why we have this new set of big media companies". If capitalism fails, there will be bail-outs. I'm not sure which way I would bet these days.
Re:This is genius (Score:5, Insightful)
Hulu is getting harassed by the studios so they're either going to have to jack up their prices, eliminate content, or do something like proving you already pay.
Harassed by the studios? They ARE the fucking studios!
Hulu is wholly owned by NBCUniversal (who are 51% owned by Comcast), Fox, and Disney.
Re:But... WHY? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would consider the current copyright laws and the ones that they keep drafting and trying to push through every which way amount to a bailout. Rather than forcing the big media companies to compete, legislators are trying to build a wall around them.
Re:no. (Score:5, Insightful)
Download it now, buy the blu rays or dvds when available.
Legal? No. Moral? Yes, in my mind.
Re:no. (Score:5, Insightful)
>>> Avoid it for a month or two and when you return it feels like you are watching a video version of the spam inbox.
Agreed. I was "cutoff" from cable for about 2 years until I recently started traveling again. As I posted on facebook:
Flip. Flip. Flip.
Nothing on TV.
Nothing all day long according to TV guide.
Glad I don't spend $1000/year on this. My hotel has 70 channels and it's a vast wasteland of reality television that I find not the least bit entertaining (Deadliest Catch was interesting for about one season and that's it). Even SyFy Channel is turning into the reality channel. I wish they'd go back to what they were in the 90s, which was a source to find all those classic television shows people had forgotten, like Time Tunnel or U-fo or Dark Shadows. And also interesting "news" shows where they interviewed show creators, book authors, and provided previews of new movies.
TNT still airs reruns of Angel, Charmed, Supernatural, and Law & Order... that may be the last good channel on the air. TCM of course is not on my cable system. :-(
Line fees (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they get it. They have an old business model that lets them lock you into paying $50 a month to watch the handful of shows that you like, in addition to the ad revenue. That business model also lets them schedule when you watch things, and try to push you into watching what they want you to watch. They've locked content to infrastructure, maintaining monopolies on distribution channels.
Technology is dismantling their control, and they don't like it. Once they're lost control, you'll pay less money and have a lot more control over your viewing habits. They don't know whether they can stop the march of progress, but they know they can use their market position and their lobbyists to slow progress. They can hold onto their kingdom for a few more years, at least, and they're going to do that.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
I know. I'd even be okay with buying episodes of shows as they air, not to coincide with some poorly done DVD release (hello, HBO) if they exist at all. In lieu of sane options, piracy is all that's left.
The cabal of advertisers, cable companies, and television networks are all so worried about losing viewers that they've decided to strap their sinking ships together. Because that's a grand idea. It worked very well for the music industry.
it's.... it's almost like.... they don't *want* our money, like they see the new technology and say... no, we refuse to be compatible with your phone and laptop and tablet and etc, will you please just give us money and we won't give you what you want? How does that make any sense at all?
Me: Excuse me waiter! I'll have a steak
Waiter: very good sir, steaming pile of crap coming up!
Me: Um, no, I said I would like a steak
Waiter: that's fine sir, but all we serve is steaming piles of crap. No one wants it, but that's what we give them and you'll pay us for it!
Me: Uh..... I think I'll go somewhere else.... there's a nice new torrent restaurant across the street that gives me what I want and costs a lot less
Waiter: No! That's.... not right! You can't do that! We'll.... we'll.... we will sue you!
Me: Really? Everyone? You're going to sue everyone that doesn't buy steaming piles of crap from you? Good luck with that!
Re:What the hell do you expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
So your advice is for Netflix to commit corporate suicide by failing to hire lobbyists of their own? Once your company reaches a certain size, non-engagement with the political system is very dangerous, and arguably a breach of fiduciary duty to shareholders. It's pretty clear that "competition" in the US these days is determined by whoever writes the biggest checks to the most influential Congressmen.
Even Microsoft had to learn that the hard way, when Novell, Netscape, and other doomed incumbents went crying to Uncle Sam. The nature of government is to expand and metastasize quickly enough to catch people like Bill Gates off guard. Reed Hastings may be a tone-deaf nitwit in some ways, but as an MSFT board member he would not have missed this lesson.
Unfortunately, trying to to stay out of the game is no longer feasible. Netflix has to become politically active, because they depend on the same cable companies who are behind this load of horse shit.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Just look at the music industry. It's by no means perfect, but iTunes music is reasonably priced (especially compared to the price level of physical albums in NL), and I can get the songs out of iTunes and onto some other medium if I want to. Add to that a Spotify account that comes free with my internet hookup, and I have plenty of legal ways to get my music. The result? I spend more than in the days of physical CDs, and I get a lot more then I would have gotten before... and I haven't looked at illegal music downloads in ages.
Re:Of course (Score:3, Insightful)
Hulu was doomed from the moment Comcast purchased NBC Universal (which jointly owns hulu). It used to be a way for networks to get around cable companies. Now it is a cable company.
Counter-productive (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if NBC/comcast is trying to kill hulu on purpose. Really. This idea is about as brainless as my "Fantasy & Science" magazine saying, "If you want our discounted $11.88 e-book version, you also must subscribe to the print version for $35.99. Sorry." It's almost genius in its malevolence.
(1) NBC/comcast doesn't want people dropping CATV.
(2) NBC/comcast doesn't want people streaming over the net, as it overloads their networks (they claim).
(3) NBC/comcast wants people to watch THEIR streaming video service, not other video services.
Therefore it makes logical sense they would want Hulu to cease to exist through making policies that would scare-off customers. If ever there were grounds for a Sherman Antitrust Lawsuit, these are it. But of course it will never happen as long as Comcast/Hollywood's best friend Obama and his copyright czar is in the white house. (I doubt Romney would bother either.)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Where have I heard this before (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
It is not a sensible option. So much of our culture is based on or related to copyrighted materials. To keep in touch with culture, and to keep in touch with current pop-culture, and thus be able to easily relate to the common people you'll encounter day to day, it is important to be have access to and be exposed to copyrighted materials.
Wow, this...could almost have come from the mouth of a Comcast publicist. "You need the content we provide. Without us, you will be out of touch, and your conversations will be comically awkward. What will you talk about over the water cooler, if not last night's episode of Survivor? If you can't quote from last night's Family Guy, small children will laugh at you, and you will never be promoted at work."
I like to think that we're not so impoverished as a culture that our tastes and interactions are dictated entirely by what forms of entertainment the major media brokers deign to shovel in our direction for an exorbitant fee. How much of what's on TV is even worth the time it would take to pirate it, when there's a lot of really amazing stuff available free of charge, and in the public domain?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Seriously. I watch under two hours of TV (NetFlix, actually) per week, and I still have to consider your position nothing but a parody of itself. Yes, I have a million better things to do; but on a cold rainy Saturday, wasting the afternoon on some Hollywood fluff beats getting stoned and licking 9V batteries.
The problem comes from Hollywood expecting me to either:
Pay over $100 per month to watch their crap broken into twelve-minute chunks with three minutes of revenue-generation between segments, or
Pay more than my hourly income for the privilege of getting a shiny plastic disc as a memento of the experience of wasting an afternoon.
What can I say, other than Thank Zeus for NetFlix and... Oh, wait, I guess I can no longer say "and Hulu". Case in point.
Re:If it happens.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
It's more like walking into a restaurant for a steak, and them saying, "Ok, for $5 you can have potato chips. For $10 you can have potato chips and some candy. For $15 you get potato chips, candy, and some salad. For $35 you get potato chips, candy, salad, and fish. For $50 you can have potato chips, candy, salad, fish and some steak. Oh, you just want steak? No, you can't have that."
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
I was going to watch season 4 of Breaking Bad on Amazon Prime but it was $4 an episode. Way too much who does Amazon think will pay that?
The one guy who strips off the DRM and then puts it up as a torrent.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually have cable, but it's not hooked up to anything. It comes included in the cost of the condo I rent. All I'd need to do is buy a TV to watch it on. And still, HELL NO.
This isn't to say that I don't watch TV, I actually have an HD projector with a 10 foot screen, surround sound, the whole bit. I do all my watching on Hulu, Netflix, or iTunes. Why? Because using those services I have to go online, actually select what I want to see, and make an active decision to watch it. So I only wind up watching one or two hours of TV a day.
The moment TV starts getting pumped in, one hundred channels of barely watchable crap, my wife is going to flip it on the second she gets home. Then I'll have the constant buzz of HGTV, The Food Network, or worse some stupid reality show. No one will even actively be watching, but with all that damn noise only a button press away, it'll get turned on.
If Hulu does this, it's back to piracy.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:goodbye hulu (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you consider that Netflix is not the problem, it's the asinite ludicrously expensive bandwidth metering?
Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
> While I don't disagree with your overall points, this analogy misses the point. If everyone goes to the "restaurant across the street," then this restaurant goes out of business... and unfortunately, the torrent "restaurant across the street" doesn't actually make steaks. They simply go to this restaurant (while it still exists) and make copies of their steaks. But if this restaurant disappears, then the 'competing' torrent "restaurant across the street" also has no steaks.
I think this analogy misses the point a little. You can live without steak from either restaurant. TV is entertainment, it's not the breath of life. If there's less of it, ...shrug...
As for Doctor Who, I believe it's funded by the BBC, which means it's ultimately taxpayer funded. Even if every content provider in the US went belly up, one could still torrent Dr Who. And I personally gave up on Game of Thrones as soon as I realized it's a soap opera with swords. And not enough swords.