Hulu losing `Daily Show,' `Colbert Report'

[Kadie]

Hulu losing `Daily Show,' `Colbert Report'

Tuesday, March 2, 2010


(03-02) 17:49 PST NEW YORK, (AP) --

The popular video Web site Hulu is losing two of its most popular offerings: "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report."

Hulu announced Tuesday that Comedy Central was pulling its shows from the site beginning March 10. "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" consistently rank among Hulu's most watched programs.

Comedy Central, which is owned by Viacom Inc., was a relatively late arrival to Hulu, which is co-owned by NBC Universal, Fox Entertainment Group and ABC Inc. When "Colbert" and "The Daily Show" were added in 2008, some saw it as Hulu cementing its place as the pre-eminent provider of TV programming online.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/03/02/entertainment/e174853S23.DTL&tsp=1

[tammywammy]

1. Booooooo! n/t

[nemo137]

2. Are they setting up a rival site?

Viacom has Comedy Central, MTV networks and what else now?

[Touchdown]

4. Viacom... CBS, Showtime, Movie Channel, Sundance, LOGO, Spike, BET, part of CW

more more more.... whew!

[Touchdown]

9. self delete

n/t

[xultar]

18. That pisses me off, because then you'll need subsctiptions to each to see shit.

Then it will end up costing as much as having all the fucking channels on cable or satellite.

Fuckers.

[MadBadger]

3. You can still get the shows on their websites.

Thats where I always got the Daily show from when I missed it.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

15. That's where I catch it as well. I didn't even know it *was* on Hulu.

[onehandle]

5. And onehandle and wife ran back to our local torrent site.

No more eyeballs for their commercials.

Idiots.

[Sebastian Doyle]

8. Sadly, the Daily Show and Colbert report aren't always on the torrent sites either.

Used to be pretty reliable. Now you're lucky to find it a day late, some days not at all. :(

[onehandle]

11. That was due to their Hulu presence.

This may just be a temporary bargaining thing. Other programs have done this before.

If not, the torrenteers will catch up in no time.

[Cirque du So-What]

6. Viacom missed the boat

They're not doing themselves any favors by denying their premier programming to Hulu. Are their top management so clueless that they can't see the direction this is taking? People don't want to be tethered to the TeeVee all the time.

[MadBadger]

16. Thats why the video is on thedailyshow.com and thecolbertreport.com

[matt819]

17. Forget premium shows

CBS has nothing on their site. There is virtually no streaming. I don't know if it's a deliberate plan or they are just too lazy or inept or contemptuous of their viewers. The more difficult these networks make it to watch their shows, the more they'll lose their internet market. Maybe that's what they want. But I don't have television - no local, no digital, no cable, nothing - and I rely on internet streaming. I'm happy to watch commercials. Hell, I think I pay more attention than I did to television commercials.

And the various networks are further screwing themselves with this 5- or 8-show limit and virtually no previous year programming. I was happy to catch up, for example, on Burn Notice on USA Network, but now that I have, I can't watch season three, as only episodes 13 and up are available. I'll probably lose interest, as I did with Heroes and Lost, and they'll lose me as an internet viewer. Maybe all the networks are smarter than us viewers, but I think they are almost all missing the boat on the streaming market.

[lazarus]

20. Survivor is streaming

And that's on CBS. They have many seasons available to stream.

[Xithras]

7. It's all about the $$

According to the original agreements, Hulu was supposed to start charging for content last year. They've been dragging their feet on getting that in place, so the content owners have only been seeing a fraction of the revenue they were originally expecting. A number of other content owners have held off on signing with Hulu at all until this is in place. Hulu's only revenue at the moment is from the commercials they run, and the content owners can make MORE money by simply posting the videos on their own site and running their own commercials.

Most people don't realize this, but Hulu wasn't intended to be a free service. The "free" Hulu was just an introductory thing to get people used to using it, and the investors behind the venture (most notably Rupert Murdoch) have already said that they expect to start charging for content this year.

In all probability, we'll see a "tiered" Hulu. Free account holders will get a lower resolution version with more commercials than they currently see on the service (probably 360P tops, with commercial interruptions every 10 minutes or so like television). Paid subscribers will get access to higher resolution SD and HD feeds with fewer or no commercials. Rumors about this have been leaked a few times over the past few months as a "compromise" to keep content free while building a new revenue source to make the investors and content owners happy.

Either way, they need to do something fast. They got these media companies to sign on with promises of revenue that aren't materializing, and they're going to start losing even more content if they don't fix that problem. Fox, ABC, and NBC aren't going anywhere anytime soon because they own Hulu, but the various cable networks are going to start bolting without something to show for their cooperation.

[Touchdown]

10. Hulu is thinking about subscription charges on the site... iPad will be a test.

Their upcoming Apple iPad app will apparently be the first to charge a fee for using it. Murdoch and company are also definite in charging for it by the end of the year.

Citing people familiar with the company, which is owned by three of the largest U.S. broadcast networks, Peter Kafka of MediaMemo reported Friday that the service, which is free for Web users, will likely be pay-only for the iPad. He said the "most likely scenario" would involve some sort of subscription package.

Hulu has been rumored for months to be exploring some sort of subscription plan to help the Web site turn a profit. Sources reportedly said the company is still unsure of the approach it will take with its anticipated premium service, and those issues would need to be resolved before an iPad plan could be made official.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/02/19/hulu_for_...

In other news...

HBO's Streaming Site to Compete With Hulu?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/189564/hbos_streaming_si...

Netflix on iPad

http://www.macworld.com/article/146794/netflix_iphone.h...


So it may mean something. CBS (which is also Viacom) is signing a deal with Apple's iTunes, so there may be that too.

[Canuckistanian]

12. Hulu bills itself as "free access"

But it's NEVER been available here in Canada, it's always been blocked to those outside the U.S.

They've even blocked VPN and proxy server access, too.

I'm not surprised at this move.

[Touchdown]

13. It's really not free in the US either.

I don't consider commercials every 15 minutes to be free.

[truedelphi]

14. What arrogant stupid. n/t

[jdp349]

19. Isn't it arrogant

to presume the business affairs of and strategic moves of company you know nothing about are stupid?

Would I be wrong in asserting that MTV Networks thought much more about this than you did?

[truedelphi]

21. Every other person on this topic said just about the same thing.

But I get your Darwin award??

:shrug: