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Thursday, February 14, 2008

Hulu Expects to Add More Content Providers

For those that don't mind watching television on their pc, content aggregation is important. Hulu, recognizing that content is king, is furiously working to add more partners, like Time Warner and Viacom, to their mix. And to increase their reach with Hulu's placement inside AOL.

More is better, not just from more suppliers, but also depth of inventory from existing content providers. Refresh is key to satisfy the unquenchable thirst of small screen viewing. For the heavy user, more is necessary to keep them returning to the Hulu site. But do you take the old content off to satisfy that user; what of the new viewer, just invited to the site, who still values the current material. How content gets refreshed and rotated affects the value for the new and old user.

And at what point should Hulu become the distribution point back to the big screen TV. Allowing it to interface throught the cable box to choose and stream VOD on the HD TV set. Will this content look good on the new HD sets? Or should Hulu make a separate version of its product for VOD consumption through the cable box. Would the consumer pay for access? Would its advertising model work to enable it to be a Free On Demand service? Ubiquitous distribution of all this content on big screen and small; to me that is what would make Hulu especially interesting but it would certainly upset the syndication apple cart.