Hulu Planning Live Cable TV Service With Partners Including Disney and Fox

[ButteryScrollin]

Well... it has to be better than Apple's one..
.

Apple has a Cloud DVR?

 

[brewmonkey]

From who do you get your broadband? Just as much blood can be sucked from any dependency on which any competitor's alternative will depend.

But I fully support the concept that more competition is always good for us consumers.

That is possible - but not necessarily a forgone conclusion. Recent activity on many fronts is hinting at controlling the amount being sucked at least.

In general, the recent multi-pronged approach of 1. squeezing increased broadband build-out through various tactics, 2. nudging broadband providers to be more honest with the specifics of their offerings, and 3. all of these alternative programming options is hopefully all shaping up to be a win for consumers. The last piece desperately needed is an earnest effort to actively encourage more competition. Way too many artificial barriers to competition in this industry for far too long have made these enormous providers sad, lazy products of their environment.

Anyhoo...I have hope!

 

[maxsix]

Can you imagine "subscribing" to a specific show and just have one unified experience with badges or alerts like you said, notifying you when you have a new episode available? I would pay top dollar for this.

Yes indeed!

That Apple repeatedly postures, pontificating about what they're about to do, it's apparently too much for them to grasp.

HULU appears just a few years ago and surges to the front. Very revealing.

 

[MacBergin]

Can you imagine "subscribing" to a specific show and just have one unified experience with badges or alerts like you said, notifying you when you have a new episode available? I would pay top dollar for this.

Its called iTunes. I just subscribe to the shows I want. Apple sends me a notice when a new episode is ready and its there commercial-free on any of my apple devices. I can also load it on to the device for watching without using data or wifi. Cost for a season subscription to a show range from $20 to $45. I was paying $130/mo for Directv. at that price I could afford to subscribe to about 45 shows per year. I don't watch 45 shows. saves me money and I never watch commercials.

 

[Meeks5050]

Only issue I would have with them is that you can only watch on one ps4 at a time. You can watch on ps3 and ps4 at same time but not same console. So it sounds like it is tied to your psn account since you can only sign onto one at a time with account.

It also works on Fire Tv and Fire Tv stick. You can have up to 5 devices streaming using the Fire devices so it really isn't an issue. The PS3 is so laggy that's it is virtually unusable for PS Vue anyways.

 

[netdoc66]

After being off cable for 6 years, I subscribed to Sony Vue service. Live TV is incredibly annoying. I don't know how people tolerate it. I've used Hulu probably 80% of the time I've had this subscription. I probably won't keep it long I just wanted to try it.

 

[ewkp]

Give me: Comedy Central, E!, Food Network, HGTV, ABC, Fox, and CBS, and I'll give you $30/month.

Throw in HBO and Netflix and I'll give you $50/month.

you should look into playstation vue. it can give u all the things on your list(not the throw-ins) for $39.99. also, you don't need a playstation to sign up. it's app based.

 

[thomasguide]

The thing is that Hulu and Netflix models pricing isn't reflective of the actual revenue the networks/content providers are getting.

The example I always use is the day old bakery. Hulu and Netflix are similar to a day old bakery in that they take content that's already been run and created an additional revenue stream. Just like an day old bakery provides an additional revenue stream for the fresh goods bakery. The network/content providers don't mind because it's inventory that is just left over...hence it's extra money.

But the bulk of revenue comes from ad revenue and (for cable networks) subscription fees. The current model works when Hulu/Netflix/online is gravy. But if that's going to be the primary delivery model, there is no way the networks/content providers are going to do it unless it makes the same amount of money. It just doesn't make business sense.

To me this announcement sounds like the networks (who own Hulu) are starting testing the trial balloon of increasing the price on online content....and would quickly raise the rate for non-live tiers if they can.

It's a super complex problem. The delivery model can definitely be improved. However, the current model where the costs are shared has resulted in a golden age of content where there is quality programming for every niche. The flip side is the networks/content providers keep increasing the costs. (of course the fact they can dupe the public into blaming it on 'greedy cable/satellite' providers makes it easy.)

And that's why Amazon and Netflix are creating their own content, Hulu too. Don't know why Hulu is doing it though as it's not likely they would pull their own shows, but who knows. Netflix has seen the writing on the wall and that's why they are pouring money into their own shows. They will reach a point where they won't need network or cable shows.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Don't know why Hulu is doing it though as it's not likely they would pull their own shows, but who knows.

Hulu is an odd alliance between competitors so they need their own shows in case things go south and they need their own shows to attract viewers from OTA and/or cable.