Hulu adds Plus; Netflix streaming soars
The long-anticipated introduction of premium viewing fees is coming to Hulu, and soon.
Numerous reports say the Hulu Plus service will give subscribers access to a deeper archive of TV series for a monthly fee of $9.95. Testing is expected to begin as soon as May 24, the Los Angeles Times reported, following up on its premium Hulu exclusive of last January. The reports didn’t provide much detail beyond that.
Co-owner News Corp. has been pushing for user-generated revenues for almost a year, with News Corp. No. 2 Chase Carey taking the lead. Hulu chief Jason Kilar has been chumming the waters for the service as well.
The Hulu faithful apparently won’t be losing out on what they have now: The plan has Hulu staying the course with its menu of the five most recent episodes of network TV offerings.
Two-year-old Hulu, like YouTube, has tried to monetize itself solely with advertising revenues, but neither strategy has proved rich enough for their owners. The networks have been making noises about charging cablers, who are firewalling content with the Comcast-driven TV Everywhere service, which offers online viewing of new shows to cable subscribers.
Netflix, meanwhile, says the bloc of its subscribers who viewed more than 15 minutes of its streaming service Watch Instantly hit 55% in the first quarter, up from 48% in Q4 2009. The number a year ago was 36%.
“It is clear that our performance, and the overall appeal of the Netflix service, is being driven by subscribers watching instantly,” red envelope king Reed Hastings said, throwing in the clever lower-case.
One reason is Netflix’s heavy promotion on subscriber pages, even though Watch Instantly comes at no extra charge. Another is the mother ship’s steady upgrades to what was a fairly mangy online catalog — for example, the addition of Criterion Collection streaming videos. (Criterion is on Hulu as well, but so far its offerings might as well be dubbed the Blind Swordsman Channel.)
Netflix stock went on a tear this week, rising briefly above the $100 mark on strong subscriber growth (to 14 million) and analysts’ upgrades. Stockholders have seen their money double in a little more than a year.
Netflix just debuted its Watch Instantly fare on the Wii console, making the online videos available on all three top game systems.
Disclaimer: I’m a Netflix stockholder, wearing a big greedy grin … but remembering that trees don’t grow to the skies.
iPad touches down with Netflix video app
Lucky buyers of the new iPad just got even luckier. A late-breaking addition to the apps lineup makes Netflix streaming video a launch item for the tablet computer.
The app is free, but useless unless you’re a Netflix subscriber it’s useless. No charge for the movies or TV shows, either, since they’re coming out of that crazy quilt that is the Watch Instantly catalog. That means no current films and plenty of watery titles. (Seek and you shall find, though.)
Sorry, iPhone and iPod Touch owners, no app for you — that hookup remains a minor holy grail.
But there’s this just in from the Netflix blog: “For those of you asking whether Netflix will be on the iPhone and iPod Touch: We wouldn’t invite you to dinner without planning to serve dessert. In other words, we’re working on it so stay tuned.”
(As of early this morning, there were three comments on the iTunes store page for the app — all asking for an iPhone version.)
The first wave of iPads works only off wi-fi, meaning performance issues won’t surface until the 3G models come out in a few weeks. Let’s not think about our iPad friends in San Francisco just yet …
“The innovation and consumer appeal of iPad make it a perfect device for instantly watching TV episodes and movies streamed from Netflix,” press-released big red Reed Hastings.
One beef: The Netflix screen looks just like the Netflix pages on the Web. Ugly.
Hulu and most other video sites won’t be in on the big launch because, of course, all iThings don’t accommodate Flash, the most popular vehicle for streaming video.
No doubt the Netflix app gets the no-video monkey off team iPad’s back.