TV Companies Plan To Make Hulu Suck Even More Making It More Difficult To Sell Hulu
from the well,-duh dept
We've talked about how the entertainment industry is really good at killing the golden goose every chance it gets. Any time some new online service actually gets people to move away from infringement, the industry freaks out and complains that they're not making enough money from the service and then tries to kill it. For example, the TV folks have made it clear that they'd like to kill Hulu even though they own it. They're so worried about "cannibalizing" the old revenue streams, that they're killing off the new ones as well. We predicted this would happen a few years ago, and it's amusing to see it happening in real time.Because of the conflicts between what Hulu management (who do seem pretty clued in) and their ownership wanted to do with the company, Hulu was recently put up for sale. But, now it's coming out that the bids Hulu is receiving are much lower than the owners want -- and it's because they've made it clear they plan to cut off all free content from Hulu:
But the bidders all figured out pretty quickly that the TV companies who own Hulu now want to phase out free ad-supported content completely. So as soon as the current set of Hulu contracts expire in a couple of years, it would be back to the negotiating table.Because of that, no one was willing to bid over $2 billion -- and the TV guys (of course) think it's worth a lot more than that, even as they're trying to kill it. Well, one exception: apparently Google was willing to pay closer to $4 billion... but it would only do that under certain conditions (which likely involve getting the TV guys to renew/guarantee future deals). So congrats, backwards looking TV guys, not only are you killing Hulu, you're killing the goodwill you build up via the company so you can't even cash out on that.
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Doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result.
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Posting this stupid 'factoid' over and over again.
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Calling someone stupid that uses a 'factoid' once, claiming that said person posts it "over and over again."
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The amount of money they "wasted" on Hulu is dwarfed by their claims of trillions of dollars in losses to people using bittorrent and cyberlockers to get the content ad free.
Even with the heavy handed 6 strikes approach they are trying to force in, the bandwidth caps several of them force onto their ISP arms, and the complete lack of any understanding what their business model should be today the true is inescapable. People want the content, people will make some small concessions to get the content legally, but if you demand total control and force more ways to extract revenue into the equation they will pick the other options available.
1997 gave us Netflix and the death of the video store. By demanding more and more cash they are working Netflix/Quickster into a failed business model. They released discs stripping out the special features, the silliest being removing the CC from the movie "Up" a movie with a character who uses a hearing aid and would need the CC service. They claim this was an oversight, but brought to light the "limited" discs they were willing to provide Netflix, as they had tried very hard to force Netflix to by directly from them by threatening other vendors.
In the around 12 years since Napster took the world by storm, they have spent millions of dollars on trying to wipe it from the face of the planet.
They ignored that idea that this is just where technology was going, and they should embrace the technology and find a way to make money with it.
2001 gave us the birth of iTunes, and the domination of Apple in the online music sales market. The labels have been dragged in kicking and screaming, they can not understand that at 99 cents they can still make money, maybe not as much as they did from physical media but they are not exactly in the poor house.
Apple forced the labels to give up on the concept of DRM, because the public screamed bloody murder about it. They now offer DRM'd tv shows and movies, but many people seem willing to deal with a 48 hour window to watch for a "decent" price.
There is nothing to see here, it is the media companies insisting that they can make everything like it was back in the 1980's when the CD was king, and VHS ruled the tube.
And the public can't even wait for one of them to fail, because they will be deemed to big to fail and we will have to bail out yet another business given carte blanche in the law, yet still can not seem to find a way to be profitable (if you believe their "studies" which no one actually does except politicians).
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Actually at 99 cents they are making far more profit than from the old physical media - because they don't have to pay to make and ship the physical media. IN fact I reckon 99 cents is a racketeering price.
5c to 25c (depending on tracklength and quality) is a fair price - and there are services out there that charge in that range.
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They do not wish to part with any more money to the artists they claim to be worried about, and still look for every possible way to claim as much of each cent as possible.
I was always surprised Apple never wanted to get into the "indie" market by creating a system for band without representation to get into iTunes. But there are smaller systems in place covering this market, given how the big companies are determined to destroy the powerhouse outlets I expect it is just a matter of time until these platforms get more exposure.
I think part of the large labels problems is the idea if we charge less then people will assume it is inferior. We all see this played out in the consumer market all the time, the less expensive option is always seen as inferior in some way even if they come from the same factory. But I think there is hope - look at the growth in "store brand" and generic OTC drugs. People have finally learned that less cost does not mean less good. While some people will still pay top dollar for Nyquil many more people will buy the generic Nyquil when the sniffles hit.
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May be psychological, but that's the free market for ya.
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At the end of the day, you pay into their monopoly, break the law, or do without the entertainment.
Netflix and Hulu are distribution companies. That's the monopoly that Big Content has lost the profits on. They can't control distribution any more, much less profit from it.
These guys believe that they can print money if they can just get control again. And they might be right, at least until making movies becomes as cheap as distributing them. When people start abandoning CBS's newest laugh track comedy for an online stream, then you are going to see ISPs work harder to block youtube. Since they'll all be the same company then, it shouldn't be that hard.
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Zenith.
and a little bit of Red State.
The competition is coming to the table, and the media corps are using their ISP arms to limit the bandwidth so you can't discover there are options.
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Why, the USA makes around 4tril/year. Limewire cause over 90 trillion of damage in only 5 years(industry claims).
Imagine, if Limewire didn't exist, no one in the entire USA would have had to work for over 20 years.
P2P causes so much damage, that if we just outlawed P2P, no one would have to work ever again.
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http://www.cracked.com/funny-4003-the-pirate-bay/
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Please, let's not wait two years. Kill it now.
I understand those in charge know what to do with Hulu, but I have no sympathy for any business stupid enough to make deals with "Hollywood".
Yes, this means you as well, Netflix.
When will these companies ever stand up, band together, and tell "Hollywood" to go to hell already?
Jeez, this isn't rocket science. "Hollywood" can't make the rules if no one is buying their content and YouTube is more than proof people just don't give a shit where their entertainment comes from.
Learn from this.
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Re: Please, let's not wait two years. Kill it now.
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Re: Please, let's not wait two years. Kill it now.
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Monopoly rents
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Re: Monopoly rents
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I'd wind up destroying the tri state area!
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Obligatory...
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Re: Obligatory...
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Had Apple done this, they never would have been able to acquire the rights to distribute the major label stuff.
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They need to be put down for good !!!
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It seems I'll be walking the death row at some point heh. Or not, maybe my country will keep walking the path of sanity and showing a big fat middle finger to the copyright excesses.
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Interesting notes
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No worries China will buy the TV stations and start airing Chinese propaganda instead.
They already air everything the US has.
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Re: Double Pay, Double Standards
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The part that really suprised me...
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Re: The part that really suprised me...
Holy shit, Satan's taken over TV! Run for the hills!
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This doesn't bother me.
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I think what so many people (MPAA, RIAA, freetard pirate advocates, etc..) fail to realize is that there are so many entertainment options now, the number of people seeking any single entertainment source is diluted. The entertainment industry erroneously blamed their diminishing market share on piracy when a great deal of the loss is due to the increased options available to consumers.
You speak quite often about lack of innovation in the entertainment industry but I don't think they should be concerned with content delivery, if their product is good enough people will seek it out - they need to be innovative with their content not the delivery method. Unfortunately, television has become stagnent with repetitive itterations of crime dramas and "reality" shows. There was a time in the 90's before so called reality TV became rampant, when people were watching TV. Now every show looks like another show and there is not much interesting programming - IMHO.
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Yes people do seek out what they want, the problem is if all the official means to get the content suck ass people have no problem using unofficial channels. If the industry wants the profit they have to give customers a way to watch the content that they enjoy, otherwise someone other than the creator is getting the page views. Crippling the legitimate ways to watch content will not make people go back to watching tv like its 1980 it will only push more people to piracy.
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Delivery does matter.
The S/N ratio was way to low even in the 90s.
If delivery is not up to snuff, people will stop bothering.
It's a whole new century and there's more than just TV and movies out there. Hollywood has to compete with EVERY THING including legal forms of free entertainment.
ABC has to even compete with Techdirt.
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Re: Delivery does matter.
The biggest change though is that I rarely watch what one would consider traditional TV shows anymore. In the whole of 2011, I've watched...Battlestar Galactica and maybe about five anime shows completely. What takes up most of my time is online blogs, articles and of course, the likes of Escapist/ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com/EpicMealTime/LittleKuriboh...basically the online review genre that has exploded in recent years. As a kid, I would eagerly await the next episode of Yu-Gi-Oh...now I eagerly await the next episode of Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged. And all these shows that I love to watch nowadays? They're all FREE!
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They should be concerned with content delivery, but only in how their made up rules make it impossible to market it to the entire globe at once.
Region coding, rolling releases, release windows... these are things the consumer hates. The only market system they had before allowed them to create these delays, but now any tv show, even the horrible ones, is available on a global network of content literally within a few minutes of the show's closing credits rolling.
They spend more time trying to reinvent DRM into a magic bullet that will let them get an extra nickel everytime you watch the content, and ignore they will sell less because the DRM limits the consumer to a single point of consumption.
It is not the early days of television when everyone stopped doing what they were doing because Uncle Milty was on, people now want to watch NCIS on the commute in the morning not at the perfect time slot the network picked. But to watch it on the commute legally means you need an approved player, a paid account, and you have to have even MORE advertising than had you taped it off the air.... or you can have a program catch the episode as soon as its out there, and it grabs it and loads it onto your player of choice so your ready to walk out the door in the morning, no commercials... no limits.
Now imagine being able to get a very high quality file from CBS directly with 1 lead in ad, that was viewable on any device... most people would pick the quality option and accept the tradeoff of the advertisement.
They need to shake themselves out of the "but we've always done it this way" mentality and get the consumers paying attention to them again... YouTube can be interesting, but it will not replace the newest episode of Dr. Who.
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There is a one stop shop for content, TPB.
If you don't think they do it well, look at the numbers for Hobo with a Shotgun.
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Mike, I do have something to say about the whole hiding flagged comments business. It's something that has never sat well with me. Opponents of Techdirt do have a point when they say that we just hide and censor comments that we don't agree with. One modification would be to show the comment, but somewhere beside it or something, show that it was flagged by X amount of people, and have a few options to show why it was flagged. As my question indicates, I actually didn't know that it was flagged for being spam.
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Normally flagged comments are left in place, much to the chagrin of US Marshals, but I think that this comment might have continued to add more traffic to that site as people did not understand the reason it had been flagged and clicked the url.
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I'll just repost what I had written.
Huh. Seems a bit weird to me that we're flagging comments because of the username. Yes, I get it, everyone hates spam...but the comment itself is just neutral and meaningless. It doesn't say click on the hyperlink or anything.
Mike, I do have something to say about the whole hiding flagged comments business. It's something that has never sat well with me. Opponents of Techdirt do have a point when they say that we just hide and censor comments that we don't agree with. One modification would be to show the comment, but somewhere beside it or something, show that it was flagged by X amount of people, and have a few options to show why it was flagged. As my question indicates, I actually didn't know that it was flagged for being spam.
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If you do flag/reply to it, yours will be flagged as well. And on some sites, I've already read that once you're flagged, you'll stay flagged as SPAM and thus more comments of yours will be removed as well. Not sure if that's the case here, but I know on a few sites I've seen this mentioned and discussed. So thought I'd point that out as a possibility.
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The AC Brigade will always claim they are being censored and deleted, this is the first time I am aware of a comment being deleted. Given what the site may or may not have been serving... (I viewed it via Google cache because I am paranoid like that) There is a chance there was malware or something of that nature to be there.
While comments can be downvoted into oblivion, they are 99.9% of the time still available to see if you click the text telling you its been squished. I think it is also part of the reason there is no edit function, to stop people from altering the past to then make claims of misdoing.
The other issue with moving follow ups would be people claiming Mike altered the context to support his evil freetard pirate anti-IP FUD campaign.
The "Neat Post" spam is the latest generation of spam techniques, that bypass many systems. The name was unique enough that I was curious what the embedded url was, but I am questioning enough to check it via Google rather than a direct click. Not everyone is the same, so it was dealt with. Most of the obvious spam is most likely held for moderation, I know I have posted multiple URLs in a single posting before and have tripped that check.
I know I'm not Mike but an AC once upgraded me to his right hand puppet... thats gotta count for something right? :)
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maybe a hulu not run by idiots will show up
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