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Hulu and boxee

by Will Johnston in Tech

If you don’t know what Hulu or boxee are, you can either stop reading now or go here and here to find out.
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Hulu recently cut off Boxee from its content after Hulu’s content providers asked them to. (See Hulu and boxee‘s blogs for details.) There was little explanation given beyond this, but I believe that the content providers did not want to cannibalize their regular television viewership.

While one can certainly hook up a computer to a television, browse to Hulu, and begin viewing, Boxee makes this viewing online content on your television easy (or so I understand from reading, never actually used it). I’m guessing that content providers still make significantly more from television commercials than online commercials, so while they may provide content online, they don’t really want online content viewing to replace your regular television viewing.

P.S. I realize this post won’t make a great deal of sense to those who aren’t on the inside of this discussion.

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Posted at 8:32 PM on February 18th, 2009
  • http://davidrussell.org David Russell

    Then why would the big studios create Hulu? They do know the value of TV on the Web. But they are too shortsighted to see how relationships with media players like Boxee increase their reach (which translates directly to increasing their bottom line.)

  • http://willfjohnston.com Will Johnston

    My guess is that (at least for now) they want your use of Hulu to be secondary to your TV watching, for you to use it when you miss something on TV. This is why Fox, even though they are one of the co-founders of Hulu, waits 8 days before putting the latest episode of House online. (Or at least they were doing this, not sure if they still are.)

    They know the value of TV on the Web and probably realize that the day is coming when most content will be delivered online, but until web commercials bring in revenue per viewer similar to television commercials, the studios will still try to get you to watch your favorite shows on TV.

    There’s also probably something to the idea that you’ll watch more commercials sitting in front of your TV than you will in front of your computer, so they’ll likely want to find a way to capitalize on that.

    On a side note because I’m now on a rant, some studios make it downright painful to watch their content online. (I’m looking at you ABC!) Hire a frickin’ UI architect!

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