Hulu may get subscription and pay-per-view offerings

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http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6696995.html

SEPT. 15 | DIGITAL: News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch touted the success of online video site Hulu.com today, saying the company is considering subscription and pay-per-view options for the service. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia XVIII Conference today, Murdoch also expressed concern about Redbox's $1 a night rentals.

Murdoch said he's "very proud" of Hulu, the online-video site News Corp. launched with NBC Universal in early 2008, and that the site would consider subscription and pay-per-view services to bring in more sales. Walt Disney Studios also is a partner in Hulu.

Murdoch said video-on-demand is growing in popularity and likely to maintain its prices.

"People sitting in their homes are very happy to pay $3.99 or $4.99" for VOD, Murdoch said. "We don't see that price moving."

Still, VOD growth is not occurring quickly enough to offset DVD sales declines, which are far more substantial for what Murdoch calls "B-level" films than for better-selling titles.

Murdoch also said Redbox kiosks' $1 rentals don't make money for either the studios or the kiosk operator but that the format will continue to grow because of its customer convenience. Redbox only makes money when customers pay $2 to $3 after keeping DVDs for more than one night, Murdoch said.

Redbox has doubled its units to about 18,000 over the past year by reaching agreements with retailers such as Walmart, Walgreens and Kroger, allowing Redbox parent Coinstar to double its second-quarter earnings from a year earlier.

"Do we like Redbox coming in at a dollar? No, we don't," said Murdoch. "But it's not going away. If Walmart were to throw them out, Walmart would put their own box in."

Walt Disney Studios chief financial officer Thomas Staggs appeared to take a more conciliatory tone when speaking about Redbox at the conference later in the day.

"What you're really talking about is intelligent windowing and intelligent pricing—it'll evolve over time," Staggs said. "I have a hard time believing it's a bad thing, [but] I'm not anxious to betray the sell-through transaction for a rental transaction."

Like Viacom's Paramount unit, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Lionsgate, Disney sells its new release titles to Redbox on street date, albeit without a formal agreement, which the other studios have signed. Disney has an agreement with Redbox, but it regards limiting used DVD sales of the studio's titles. Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield said last week, however, that could change with the release of Disney's Up, arriving Nov. 10.

News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, however, is among studios being sued by Redbox for trying to impose a delayed DVD release window on movie rental kiosks until at least four weeks after the regular street date as part of an effort to prevent kiosk rentals from eating away at DVD sell-through.

Fox, which directed wholesalers to not sell its new titles to any vending operator until 30 days after street date beginning with the Oct. 27 release of its $151 million-grossing Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, was sued last month by Redbox. The kiosk operator also has claims against Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Warner Home Video for similar reasons.

News Corp. said last month that its fiscal 2009 operating profit for its filmed entertainment unit dropped 32% after theatrical and DVD releases failed to keep pace with year-earlier titles such as The Simpsons Movie and Live Free or Die Hard.
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Rupert Murdoch touting another shitbrained idea to make money off of free services. God damned, these fucking old codgers STILL don't get how this shit works.
 
and goodbye Hulu. It was a pleasant relationship while it lasted, but in the end we just drifted apart. You were too needy. And I was too cheap. Never would've lasted. I'm hooking up with my old beau from way back. She doesn't ask me for anything. Just that I keep her "turned on" long enough to share her around with all the other guys. Farewell
 
If it was a small fee I would pay for it assuming they allowed you to view Hulu anywhere in the world without using some workaround. Unfortunately they probably have no plans for something like this.
 
SpeedingUptoStop said:
Rupert Murdoch touting another shitbrained idea to make money off of free services. God damned, these fucking old codgers STILL don't get how this shit works.
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How does it work exactly? Everything should be free and nobody gets paid?
 
Fuck it. He thinks Hulu's so important? I can go out my way to watch the shows I want. The Daily Show/The Colbert Report on their respective websites, The Office etc. on NBC and It's Always Sunny on my buddy's DVDs.

Fuck Murdoch if he thinks Hulu is worthy of a subscription.
 
blame space said:
Advertisers pay for advertising and advertisers get paid?
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Yes, because that always works so well on the internet, right? Here's how much money Hulu will probably make this year. And now consider that Hulu is owned by four different companys.

Besides, Hulu offers a lot of content. If that isn't worth a few bucks each month, I don't know what is.
 
Sloane said:
Yes, because that always works so well on the internet, right? Here's how much money Hulu will probably make this year. And now consider that Hulu is owned by four different companys.

Besides, Hulu offers a lot of content. If that isn't worth a few bucks each month, I don't know what is.
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It doesn't really matter what it is "worth" to certain people, you don't just go start charging for someone that gained its popularity from being free. Even if it is a very small fee most people just won't pay for it because they don't want to have to worry about another subscription. Imagine if Facebook started charging a fee. They would probably lose the majority of their users overnight and a new service would pop up within days.

As long as Hulu isn't the only option to watch shows for free over the internet then they will never get away with charging for it and there will probably always be alternatives.
 
I'm still upset that they're taking down Seasons 2 and 3 of Arrested Development. It's also a pain in the ass to navigate the site.
 
Oh well the 6.3 billion other people in the world won't have ever known about it so what does it matter.
 
I'd pay a sub of $10-20 a month if Hulu got every episode of every show at the same time as the first airing and shows were never removed (or at least only after the shows were available on DVD).

A sub for the current service? No way in hell. It has to have every show and they have to stay around for more than 3-5 weeks. The current system is only really useful for catching shows you forgot to DVR or shows you don't ordinarily watch but heard a particular episode was really awesome.

That shit ain't worth a sub, and definitely isn't worth PPV.
 
Zefah said:
If it was a small fee I would pay for it assuming they allowed you to view Hulu anywhere in the world without using some workaround. Unfortunately they probably have no plans for something like this.
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Indeed. If I had open access to all seasons of traditionally offered content, and was able to stream it to or from whatever device I pleased, then I would gladly pay five, ten, maybe fifteen dollars a month for the service.

It would sure beat paying the cable company month after month.
 
If it offers enough content that's different from netflix streaming I would sign up.
 
Zefah said:
It doesn't really matter what it is "worth" to certain people, you don't just go start charging for someone that gained its popularity from being free. Even if it is a very small fee most people just won't pay for it because they don't want to have to worry about another subscription. Imagine if Facebook started charging a fee. They would probably lose the majority of their users overnight and a new service would pop up within days.
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You can't compare Facebook to Hulu. Facebook is just a service for people to stay in touch with each other, while Hulu offers TV shows created and financed by the companies that own Hulu. If Facebook goes down, something else will pop up, sure. But if Hulu dies, it's up to said companies to start a new service. (Or license their content to someone else.)

And I don't believe that most people wouldn't pay, if the few is reasonably small. They are used to paying a subscription for newspapers, for telephone and internet, for video rental, for satellite TV -- why not for something like Hulu? If it's worth using than it should be worth paying for, I think.
 
Hulu is basically screwed if they start charging. Alot of people use it simply because its easy and less fo a hassle then aquiring tv episodes elsewhere.

Start Charging and they will be screwed with people going back to torrents etc
 
If they still offer TV shows the day after for free, I don't care.

But if they charge just to use the site, no matter how small the fee, I'm going back to torrents. I only use Hulu for watching shows I missed because I forgot to TiVo it. I don't give a shit about watching movies on there because I can't watch them on my TV because they refuse to make a deal with Xbox or Sony.
 
iamblades said:
I'd pay a sub of $10-20 a month if Hulu got every episode of every show at the same time as the first airing and shows were never removed (or at least only after the shows were available on DVD).

A sub for the current service? No way in hell. It has to have every show and they have to stay around for more than 3-5 weeks. The current system is only really useful for catching shows you forgot to DVR or shows you don't ordinarily watch but heard a particular episode was really awesome.

That shit ain't worth a sub, and definitely isn't worth PPV.
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so, you would pay less than you do for cable tv in return for being able to watch any show at any time? aka cable tv with instant, ever-lasting and all-encompassing dvr?

i dont get why people expect so much out of companies on the internet.
 
Sloane said:
You can't compare Facebook to Hulu. Facebook is just a service for people to stay in touch with each other, while Hulu offers TV shows created and financed by the companies that own Hulu. If Facebook goes down, something else will pop up, sure. But if Hulu dies, it's up to said companies to start a new service. (Or license their content to someone else.)

And I don't believe that most people wouldn't pay, if the few is reasonably small. They are used to paying a subscription for newspapers, for telephone and internet, for video rental, for satellite TV -- why not for something like Hulu? If it's worth using than it should be worth paying for, I think.
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Don't compare it to Facebook if you don't want to. I was just trying to point out that chances for success are very slim if you start charging for a service that was free up to this point. Has any internet website / service actually been successful in shifting from being free to charging a fee? Maybe if they kept the standard service as it is and introduced a "premium service" that featured videos in higher resolution, had longer retention times and offered other incentives they could get away with it, but I sincerely doubt they could get away with simply charging for the current service.
 
mcrae said:
so, you would pay less than you do for cable tv in return for being able to watch any show at any time? aka cable tv with instant, ever-lasting and all-encompassing dvr?

i dont get why people expect so much out of companies on the internet.
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The only reason cable companies get away with charging so much is because they pretty much have very little to no competition. Why does it cost so much to have cable and DVR service? Because some company who has a monopoly thinks they deserve that much.

The internet provides a much more open ended market and consumers should always demand more for their money. It is a company's job to find ways to meet those demands while staying profitable.
 
Yeah, Hulu charging would be balls but if they had a plan for 4.99 a month to have HBO and Showtime shows, I think that would go over quite well with people.
 
AlternativeUlster said:
Yeah, Hulu charging would be balls but if they had a plan for 4.99 a month to have HBO and Showtime shows, I think that would go over quite well with people.
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This I would pay for. But dont forget Starz. Party Down was hilarious.
 
Brian Fellows said:
This I would pay for. But dont forget Starz. Party Down was hilarious.
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I would like to get AMC shows right after they air and would pay just so I don't have to wait for the torrent :lol at my addiction to Breaking Bad.
 
Fuck dtv, comcast, etc prices for movie channels. I'd pay a small fee to see all movie channel shows. Stream it to my tv over a media server.
 
If they charged 5 bucks a month for access to high speed HD servers, I'd be cool with that. Charge for HD (and movie rentals and PPV), keep the SD stuff free. Most currently airing shows only keep their stuff on hulu for a few weeks anyway, and that seems like a good enough precaution to keep Hulu from cutting into DVD sales too much.

Of course, Rupert was threatening just like a month ago to make all the properties he owns with significant internet freebies were going subscription. However, Hulu is owned equally by NBC, ABC, and FOX, so it's not only Rupert's call. I'd also be cool with a season pass model for cable shows. Like 20 bucks for, say, the new season of True Blood or something.

I got a ton of people early hulu beta access because my ol' best friend from the smelly east coast was an NBC nerdo. He moved on to something else about a year ago, but I'll hit him up for dirt the next time I see him online.
 
I believe Disney was recently talking about this also. Sucks if this happens, but I really only use Hulu to watch Daily Show and Colbert here at work.
 
AlternativeUlster said:
Yeah, Hulu charging would be balls but if they had a plan for 4.99 a month to have HBO and Showtime shows, I think that would go over quite well with people.
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That's a cool idea.
 
It seems Hulu isn't going to offer full seasons of shows anymore and may just be offering older shows in 5 episode rotations... which sucks. I enjoyed being able to fly through Angel season 1 in about two or three days.
 
I'll gladly subscribe if they release an API to the content. If I still have to browse to their shitty website to get the content, f it.
 
The selection isn't good enough to warrent a fee. They need to offer more than the latest five episodes of shows, and expand to stuff like HBO and Showtime. Until then, they can kiss my ass.
 
If they charge me I want the resolution to be a bit higher. But I'd probably be willing to pay $10ish bucks a month for that.
 
SpeedingUptoStop said:
Rupert Murdoch touting another shitbrained idea to make money off of free services. God damned, these fucking old codgers STILL don't get how this shit works.
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How does it work? They give you shit for free even if ad revenue doesn't cover the costs of delivery?
 
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