Sorry to hears this news, but if it happens, my family is gone. BTW, how can you do this when so many people are unemployed. Did you hire some stupid 20 something to run your company? Wouldn’t be the first time. Grow a brain.

Agree with you. A higher tier, or a limited amount of pay-for content could work. Think 720p day and date with movie release. And a way to watch it on my actual TV. Happy to pay a rental fee to whoever can offer me the movie I want.

And yes, we’re all used to the rules now–either the show is free and comes with ads, or you pay for it and it doesn’t. You can’t do both.

I doubt they’ll find a way to get me to pay for it, but lets see what happens.

@davezatz

The equivalent doesn’t exist in iTunes ( no super high fidelity songs made with max sampling rate, iTunes dashboard is overloaded with ads for crappy bands, concert tickets do not come with full album purchase, etc. )

If the industry leader, Apple, can’t/won’t make that work, why do you expect the dinosaurs at hulu to?

http://gawker.com/5187540/shamwow-guy-beats-up-cannibal-hooker

Regarding a premium Hulu tier, it needs to be commercial-free higher quality video and entire seasons if they want my money. Otherwise, I’ll just Netflix the DVD or get the content via my cable subscription and whatever DVR I’m using at the time. Right now Hulu’s content library is incomplete and unpredictable.

1) Get on the TV itself. Sorry, no, my computer is not my TV. They do two different things. I did not spend money on a 50″ HDTV to watch TV in 480p on my MacBook’s 13″ display. Roku, TiVo, Apple TV, Boxee – I can’t say I care which one(s) they use, but they need to deliver the content to the TV itself.

2) Speaking of 480p… I want at least 720p.

3) Increase the library selection. I appreciate what is on there, but it’s miniscule compared to what is actually on DVD or can be found on a torrent tracker.

4) They should only go to a charging model if they know an advertising model will not work, and I still think it could. Look, I’ll be honest: I have no problem with giving up some demographic data if I’m not going get Cialis and Sham-WOW ads. Give me ads for things I’m actually interested in… this whole internet thing makes it pretty easy to target a specific type of user with ads he/she would actually find useful. A net-delivered ad model is the only way content providers can do such a thing – the broadcasters are stuck broadcasting ads for the widest general audience (and the highest bidder).

I’m not opposed to charging, I’m just not sure Hulu has figured out how to approach what it is. If it were focusing on being a true IPTV content provider, and provided a ton of past shows alongside new series, then a charging model might still work. It all depends on how greedy they get.

Nice to see the dinosaurs reveal themselves, prove they didn’t actually evolve at all, and are now reverting back to that same mentality that caused them to jump ship from iTunes back in 2007.

Dear decision makers at hulu:

You were making a very handsome profit selling The Office on iTunes, but you wanted even more, so you pulled your content and built hulu.

Only now, the number of YouTube users as grown exponentially since 2007. So weight carefully the cost of sending out and enforcing 1,000 times more DCMA take down notices than you were in doing 2007 while still on iTunes. Is it more than you stand to lose in advertising revenue once hulu usage plummets to near zero because you started charging?

I would also remind you that you dodge a bullet in contract negotiations with SAG during the last strike, citing “hulu is free, we don’t charge for it.”

Sure I watch it once in a while. But the buffering restrictions keep it from working in most hotel rooms, or over 3G. Just too stuttery. And that means the only place I would watch it is either at work, which would be very rare, or at home to catch up on an episode I missed. I’d either live with missing the episode, buy the episode off Amazon or iTunes, or stream it for free from the ABC/CBS/TV.com website.

If it were available via STB, with good quality (think 720p widescreen), and had content that would allow me to kill off some cable channels like HBO or Showtime, then maybe. But not very much.

If they want me to prove I’m already paying for their channels, well fine, I am. No problem there. If they want me to pay again, no thanks.