Bad news, people who don't want to pay for cable or satellite TV — "sources" are telling the New York Post that Hulu might start requiring authentication to stream content.
It turns out the ongoing Hulu versus Netflix faceoff for streaming domination has just been buffering in preparation for the latest battle. Within one week, both streaming video giants have shed their identities as mere content providers and have taken on new roles as content creators.
We’re still some distance from a world where online streaming of content can truly challenge the dominance of television, but recent figures suggest that the number of households in the U.S. with at least one television actually fell in 2011. Are we finally seeing the long-awaited beginning of “cord-cutting”? And if so, what are people cutting their cords in favor of?
Cord-cutting may be an unproven myth, but new research suggests that people’s television habits are changing in a way you wouldn’t expect: Only a third of all television viewing these days happens “live,” without the Internet, TiVo or some other form of recording or time shifting.
If you build the content, they will come. Hulu.com saw an impressive 23% bump in traffic for November compared with the same period last year, according to comScore’s analysis, with 34.5 million unique viewers for the month.
Consider this a quiet declaration of war. Talking at the VideoSchmooze NYC event yesterday, HBO Co-President Eric Kessler said that there is “no chance” the company will make its original series like Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones and True Blood available digitally to non-HBO subscribers.
Move over, VEVO; Facebook has now become the second most popular online destination for online video viewing (behind YouTube), with roughly a third of its visitors in October watching at least one video on the site.
If Netflix does, in fact, continue its slow implosion and disappear into the coldness of internet irrelevance, one question seems to be left unsaid: Who will take over where it left off? Who profits from Netflix’s demise the most?
Watch out, Netflix: There’s a new player in the online video space, with the kind of past history that should probably make you a little nervous. Introducing VDIO, the new streaming video-on-demand service from the people who brought you Skype. And Napster. And Apache. You’ll find some Microsoft veterans in there, too.
To everyone who entered a bid to try and buy Hulu: Apparently, you didn’t offer enough. According to a statement released yesterday by Hulu joint owners the Walt Disney Corporation, News Corporation and Providence Equity Partners (as well as senior Hulu management), the owners have “terminated the sale process” for the company, due to its [...]
Move over, Netflix; you’ve been replaced as the king of streaming television with Microsoft’s announcement of new partnerships for Xbox 360 with 50 international content providers, including HBO—the one “get” that Netflix has never quite managed.
