I can’t say I’m surprised at all, but Hulu will start charging for their web content this coming year. While there are a lot of intelligent revenue models on the web in use for profits to sustain various services, something like Hulu.com was inevitably going to be a paid service. There are a lot of hands in the pot here (Fox, NBC, ABC, etc.), and sure maybe it wasn’t profitable, maybe it was, or maybe it wasn’t profitable enough for all parties involved.
The quote from News Corp on the matter sounds a bit like a smoke screen as to what the true issue was:
“It’s time to start getting paid for broadcast content online. I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value. Hulu concurs with that, it needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business.”
Translation: “It’s a recession, we need to make more money.”
Original post at Lifehacker below.
Lifehacker
via Hulu Officially Charging for Content in 2010 [Television].
