The NY Post reports Hulu is on the verge of leaving cord-cutters behind as the video streaming site prepares to switch to a “TV Everywhere” model that requires viewers to prove they subscribe to a pay television provider before they will be able to stream video online.
The decision to abandon viewers who have cut cable’s cord is reportedly behind last week’s decision by Providence Equity Partners to abandon Hulu, the major network-owned video operation.
The Post reports that non-cable TV subscribers are going to find it increasingly difficult to legally stream video content as program producers and networks start switching off access to those getting a “free ride.”
Among the most aggressive to stop the “freeloading” is Fox, which plans on launching talks with Comcast on a TV Everywhere deal that will require all viewers to have a paid video subscription. Comcast itself is reported to be preparing to switch to an authentication model for online streaming of this year’s Olympics.
Don’t pay for cable, telco, or satellite TV? No streaming video for you.
That’s a real smart move. Its not as if people who have already ditched cable/sat are going to suddenly hop back on the bandwagon and spend 50-100+ bucks a month for the one or two shows they watched on hulu.
Nothing like completely trashing a decent service.
…….pointless, we have caps!!, even the people that still have cable tv has caps!!, why?? why add this on top of the requirments FCC should address the cable companies out right control… this is gettin to be ridiculous they want us to pay 300 or more a month which is bull
I can’t wait until they go after my free video provider – the public library.
So let me get this straight, Hulu is making you prove you pay a cable bill before you can pay them for your Hulu Plus subscription? Or is it just for the standard, non-pay Hulu that they are doing this for? I thought they were getting rid of that anyway?
I guess they don’t want people to see their ads.
Somehow, I see those guys just hopping over to some link aggregation site which collects illegitimate streaming content or moving onto torrents / direct downloads.
Yes, I think this will fuel piracy, whether end users realize they are “stealing” content or just finding what they think is a legitimate way to watch, even though it isn’t.
If Hollywood wants to rake in the money, they should remove the restrictions, either sell an ad-free subscription service or free ad-supported version and let people watch unencumbered. But just like the rest of the entertainment industry, they want to milk it for every penny, and it just drives people to underground ways to access the content to watch on the device of their choosing.
This is it. Now is the time to begin the fight. If you dont rise up with me like we all did for PIPA and SOPA, the window of opportunity for true net neutrality and consumer friendly streaming will forever close if we tolerate this.
This only encourages piracy. Hollywood media execs just don’t get it.
I’m not sure how they expect to make any money by doing this, why is someone going to pay extra or even bother with the ad laden ‘free’ HULU when they already have cable TV and a DVR that doesn’t use up their capped internet.
This is really just a WIN for Netflix more than anything as they’ll get a boost in subscribers, along with Crackle, and likely people going back to illegal streaming sites which already seemed popular given media reports of those popping up with rebroadcasted TV.
I won’t pay for Hulu Plus precisely because of the presence of ads. If I pay a premium price for a service, it better not come with the same advertising load as the free version. I am capable of being “authenticated” as a “legitimate” cable subscriber because I have a triple play package from Time Warner Cable. But I’ll tell you their authentication system is still far from perfect and often cumbersome to remain logged in. I prefer Netflix and spend the majority of my time there vs. either TWC’s TV Everywhere project or Hulu.
Doesn’t matter much to me. I cut the cord a couple of months ago when I couldn’t get the cable deal I wanted (no competition here) and although they said I could get new customer pricing after a month I’m enjoying the savings with my netflix and dsl (which actally streams better because I had drop outs with my cable modem, but not dsl.) I don’t subscribe to Hulu because the ads annoyed me, my LG netcast doesn’t have access to Hulu, and the Ipad app doesn’t have TV out so it wasn’t worth it to me anyway.
Hulu is one of those websites where they could have perhaps really taken off provided they didn’t screw it up within the last year or so. They need to have some guts to stand up to the companies wanting their content only on TV. I stopped using Hulu when they started to increase the time and amount of ads on the site, but only after they started taking away entire archives of previous episodes of shows. Their crappy video player is just a CPU hog these days, has no HD support unless you’re Paid, and now if they wish to… Read more »
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