Hulu has been around for a number of months now. Due to its seclusion from the open Web by way of a limited beta, it’s only been tested by a relatively small number of users - a sizable percentage of whom consider the NBC-Fox service a worthwhile option for distributing on-demand TV content to viewers’ browsers. Yet Michael Learmonth of Silicon Alley Insider has posited that an official launch of the website is likely to occur sometime next week. What do you think of that?
I, like Learmonth, would venture to guess Hulu’s non-private-beta debut to be soon. But maybe not too soon. Give it ‘til the end of March, I say.
Why? Because things move more slowly than quickly in the network TV realm. Even when it is Web video that is on the agenda, the tortoise has historically been preferred over the hare, and I see no outstanding signs of an abrupt change of pace. That’s just the way things work in that business. Everyone on the outside want things now. The audience screams for immediate. But most of the big networks are hard set on later. It’s annoying, and pretty much antithetical to the way the Web works. But it’s true.
Yes, Learmonth points out Fortune’s Hulu profile as reason to believe a launch is imminent. And I can agree that the article’s date of publication - in a biweekly magazine, to be accurate - lends some credence to notion that we’re closing in on zero hour. But we should probably compensate somewhat for that classic old-media delay. You know, because print is never as quick a medium as the Web. Besides, Hulu’s bosses are going to now have to make the rounds and provide that standard-issue commentary to other outlets in anticipation of the big day. Fortune just got the first bite. There’s likely still plenty of the preview pie left to satisfy the reverberators out in medialand. (Again, I presume.)
If you were to look back six to twelve months hence, what do you think Hulu’s story will be? A significant success? A lackluster, rough-edged project? Something too restricting for a profitable number of viewers to really enjoy?
I myself will take the middle ground. It won’t be too big, and neither too small. It will probably lose money for a while, or, if the ideal plays out, it will barely break even. In other words, it’ll still be alive and kicking when March ’09 rolls around.
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