Hulu adds Plus; Netflix streaming soars
Posted on April 24, 2010
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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
Posted on April 3, 2010
Filed Under Apple | 1 Comment
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.
CBS already a winner in NCAA tournament
Posted on March 18, 2010
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CBS’ online coverage of March Madness — the NCAA basketball tourney — has raked in about $37 million in ad sales. Look for at least 8 million unique viewers.
The online viewership is dwarfed by the traditional telecasts, but that $37 mil is not a bad showing, considering it comes from the charity stripe. In its first year of free and open access, March Madness on Demand made a measly $4 million.
The evolution of CBS’ online tournament coverage shows that old media can learn from its mistakes and limitations, given enough time.
The network’s early attempts at online NCAA came with an admission charge, $15 back in 2004. Two years later, it offered feeds for free, but viewers had to go through an annoying registration process — and wait in “lines” to enter the video portal. Long waits, smeary images, frozen screens — the bad old days.
Then, in 2008, CBS got it: full access for everyone, no blackouts and no marketing-driven registration. The network starting streaming all, including the Final Four and Championship Game. Overall quality was up, slowness down.
This year there’s the HQ video, back again after debuting in 2009. Those with the right stuff get widescreen HQ video via the March Madness on Demand player. CBS says viewers can watch picture-in-picture highlights of ongoing action inside of a live video stream.
The standard player runs on Adobe Flash, while the HQ comes via Microsoft’s Silverlight platform. New this year for the HQ is something called IS Smooth Streaming, which adjusts the bitrate to match your online video setup. Audio comes from Westwood One’s coverage. Stats can be displayed onscreen as well.
The March Madness players can be found all over the Web, thanks to various partnerships and the javascript links offered to anyone who wants them. (The freebie ad below will take you there, for example.)
CBS to some extent is doing what it has to, since nothing less than full (and free) access would satisfy fans. Look at the animosity NBC generated with its crappy online coverage (or non-coverage) of the previous two Olympics Games. NBC doesn’t seem to be learning anything from this biennial outpouring of hate, but its rivals no doubt are paying attention.
Here are some other venues for the web streams: CNN.com, ESPN.com, Facebook and CBS Interactive properties TV.com, CBS.com, CNET.com and GameSpot.com. The March Madness iPhone app goes for $10.
Last year, CBS posted about $32 million in ad revenue for March Madness on Demand. There were 7.52 million unique visitors in 2009, a 58% increase over 2008, the network said. About 8.6 million total hours of video and audio were gobbled up by sports fans, a 75% increase over 2008.
‘The Daily Show,’ ‘Colbert’ ditch Hulu
Posted on March 3, 2010
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Issuing a “public and fond farewell,” Hulu announced that “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” have defected from the online video streaming service.
The news comes as Hulu failed to renegotiate a deal for content from Comedy Central, owned by Viacom.
Hulu cast the departures as a wrenching loss for its viewers: “Our users have been extremely vocal and passionate about how much they love what the Comedy Central folks are doing.” The fun’s over on March 10.
In a Hulu blog post about Comedy Central that reads like a hail-Mary bit of negotiation, Hulu added: “We’ve driven steadily increasing revenue per view as advertisers voted with their budgets to take advantage of innovative ad formats and very strong advertising effectiveness.”
Comedy Central replied: “We had a great experience with Hulu, and we hope to work with its team again in the future.”
Hulu viewers were quick to pile on: “Let your corporate sponsors know that me and quite a few other people will be heading back to torrents due to this,” one guy groused.
The two late-night shows remain free on their own websites. But the video images are sharp and clear on Hulu, while the Comedy Central streams look soft, with oddly oversatured colors. The audio seems a bit better on Hulu as well.
“The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” debuted on Hulu in the summer of 2008. Hulu’s traffic began its dramatic gains about that time.
Erik Flannigan, executive vice president of digital media at MTV Networks, said at the time that the Hulu placement was a public service, given the creepy fact that something like 20 percent of young Americans said they got their political news from Stewart and his comic spawn.
Cablevision slings online video to TVs
Posted on February 26, 2010
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While Comcast is busy herding online video behind its TV Anywhere walls, rival Cablevision plans to help viewers watch streaming video in the wild — via the new PC to TV Media Relay hookup.
Cablevision says the service allows customers to transfer anything (their italics) that displays on their PC monitors to that widescreen TV. “We are putting an end to the need for families to huddle around their laptops or PCs to watch content together,” Cablevision COO Tom Rutledge press-released.
“Anything” presumably includes iTunes video and Hulu’s trove of network TV fare, an improvement over current PC-TV link of choice Boxee.
A “simple” software download to the PC activates the link, with no hardware in sight. Handheld personal electronic devices that are running through the home network also can make their debut on the big screen, Cablevision says. Internet radio and applications for email and spreadsheets apparently will work as well.
The signal slings through the Cablevision network system and onto a dedicated (unused) TV channel, similar to how home video players work.
Anyone with a computer and a burning desire to watch “Smosh” and “Happy Tree Friends” on the idiot box already has figured out how to do this — but there’s something to be said for a solution that loses the boxes and wires.
Cablevision said its beta test of PC to TV Media Relay will get under way in June. Mac users should stand by for the usual techno-lag, as it’s PC only for now.