May 2012
April 2012
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Hulu, which attracted 31 million unique users in March under a free-for-all model, is taking its first steps to change to a model where viewers will have to prove they are a pay-TV customer to watch their favorite shows, sources tell The Post.
In fact, the move by Hulu toward the new model — called authentication because viewers would have to log in with their cable or satellite TV account number — was behind the move last week by Providence Equity Partners to cash out of Hulu after five years, these sources said.
And it’s not just Hulu making it tougher for cable-cutters to stream shows and other content. Fox, owned by News Corp., which also owns The Post, is expected to begin talks soon with Comcast on a TV Everywhere deal that will require authentication. Plus, Philadelphia-based Comcast is expected to switch to an authentication model for this summer’s Olympic Games.
” —Hulu, Fox move to change model of free TV streaming by Clare Atkinson for the NY Post.
“There are roughly 105m multichannel TV households in America, of which 77m do not subscribe to HBO. By contrast, he reckons, there are only about 3m households with broadband connections and reasonable amounts of money but no multichannel TV. It makes sense to go after the bigger group.”
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Bill Nelson, HBO’s chief executive, paraphrased in the Economist’s article from last August: HBO and the future of pay TV.
(Re-reading that article was prompted by a friend asking why I hadn’t streamed Veep to see if I liked it. The answer is that I can’t pay HBO to let me do so.)
