When Viacom took away two of the biggest shows from Hulu, the alarm bells started ringing. Hulu’s current avatar is in the balance, and this was the last subject they needed. To lose both Comedy fundamental hit shows “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report” could be the ascendent of the end, for without premium content viewing audience will start going the site. Considering the popular video site withal does not turn a profit, lower rouse numbers pool could kill the service.
Viacom making Hulu nervous
And economics is what its all about it seems. He also said that streaming the shows on Hulu’ website had been an experiment, but still left the door open for a return key to Hulu. Viewers can still see both shows on the internet from the Comedy Central website.
So it looks like Hulu are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. On the one hand they cannot turn a profit if they take less gross share. But on the other, tv networks now know they can monetize their own content using their own websites and make much more of a return. Of course Hulu know the problems which is why they are actively facial expression at a pay to view option. It is yet to be seen if anyone else takes the same stand as Viacom, and if they do. It may be time to say bye bye to Hulu’s current model.
Comscore know their stats
After several months of online video numbers constantly rising and Comscore declaring that the market was “exhibit no signs of slowing down in growth”, the slowdown has come. Google properties (ie. Youtube) must be getting blase session at the top constantly, but they still are with 12.8 billion video streamed.
Although left over(p) in second place, Hulu must be a little dissapointed after getting around a billion views last year. The top catch up tv website dropped down to a still pretty hard 903 million views. To those that a, the viewing numbers for January 2009 were up over December 2008.
Online Video for January takes a dive
Microsoft video sites complete the third position followed by Yahoo. Fox Interactive Media dropped from 4th position to 6th and views dropped from 550 million December to 293 million in January, a fall of about 47%.
So is this the start of a decline in online tv? Not a chance, its a blip. Already we know that next months figures will be high simply due to the number of online viewers watching the Olympics last month. And when you compare this January to last, video views are still up 119%. The future is live internet tv and a blip sure wont change that.