Subscription based Hulu would be a disaster
By Mike Ferro
Hulu is an exploding Internet service that may be quickly replacing the Tivo. The service allows viewers to catch the latest episode of their show or re-watch shows from over a decade ago on the fly. The service has been free and largely ad supported, but there are those speaking out against such business practices.
The Hulu service is a popular streaming video service here in the U.S. The company has been gaining more exposure after launching an extensive series of commercials on the television. The service consists of many of the top shows currently airing, including shows from over a decade ago. The videos are free to watch, but they are not advertisement free. However, the ads are extremely limited as there are only a handful of them throughout each video.
Hulu also brings an option to stream video at 480p resolution which is much better then what the competitors currently offer. According to The Register, Hulu service may be making its way overseas to Europe as early as this September. The Register also talks about the possibility of Hulu or other similar services going for a subscription model.
According to The Register, News Corp.’s Jonathan Miller has been going around speaking out against the practice of streaming free TV shows via the Internet. He believes that there should be a premium attached to the service. Miller has been attending several venues in attempts to persuade Web companies to start pushing users off free content by charging for it.
I feel that if a service like Hulu goes the subscription route anytime soon it would be disastrous. Most viewers use Hulu for convince rather than necessity. Despite the improvements in the service, it still has a long way to go before it could even replace devices such as Tivo or other subscription based video services such as Netflix.
In many cases Hulu does not have all of the episodes and at times the quality degrades significantly. The subscription model would only be effective if the quality and consistently were there. Also, if video service companies start charging subscription fees then it would directly align itself against giant video streaming competitors such as Netflix. It will be interesting to see if Miller will be able to actually persuade any of the Web companies to follow his vision.
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