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.

Or at least those willing do some research. Brian Stelter of the New York Times is something of a phenom when it comes to news about the TV industry, having started the influential blog tvnewser.com and subsequently being hired by the New York Times straight out of college, but his article on the “It’s 3 AM and I’m ready to be President” campaign ads of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (embedded below – hat tip to TechPresident) shows that being an expert on one medium doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re qualified to discuss other types of media.

Mr. Stelter states that “Three days after it made its television debut, the Clinton commercial had registered more than 600,000 views on YouTube, and Mr. Obama’s recorded over 200,000, making the dueling advertisements the first breakout hits of the YouTube campaign. (Some campaign videos are lucky to receive 10,000 views.)”

While it may be true that some campaign videos don’t hit 10,000 views, I’m not sure what metric that Mr. Stelter is using to determine what makes a YouTube video a “breakout hit.” By far, the biggest video of the campaign season is “Yes We Can” by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, having received over 12 million views spread across the numerous copies posted to YouTube, but we can look back much farther for breakout hits. Perhaps the first big hit of the 2008 Presidential election was 1984/Vote Different by Phil de Vellis with over 5 million views (again over multiple uploads), and who could forget Obama Girl. None of these are candidate produced videos, but we need only go to Obama’s response to the State of the Union (1.3 million), Obama’s victory speech in Iowa (1 million), and many others to find videos that have been viewed many more times than either of these. In fact, Obama’s SOTU response has been watched more times than both of those ads put together.

I’ll admit that I may be overly defensive of new forms of media, be it blogs, online video, or social networks, but it irks me when someone in the mainstream press makes a blatantly untrue statement that trivializes the revolution that is taking place in the field of communications.

Since this is my blog, I’m also going to take the opportunity to editorialize on the videos just a bit and note that YouTube users have rated Clinton’s “3 AM” video with one star out of a possible five (Obama’s version has four) and that tens of thousands of her views have come from an extremely heavily trafficked DailyKos post slamming the ad.

Hillary’s 3 AM Ad

Obama’s 3 AM Ad

Yes We Can

1984

Obama’s SOTU Response

Obama’s Iowa Speech

Obama’s New Hampshire Speech (Just because I love it and because it’s been viewed more times than Hillary’s 3 AM ad.)