Lots of news coming from CES this week and one that caught my eye was that the subscription service arm from Hulu, Hulu Plus, has exceeded 1.2 million paying customers. What is interesting is the kind of deals Hulu Plus has created. Some programming license deals require a Hulu Plus customer to also be "authenticated" by a cable operator. "Those deals with give subscribers to those operators-none of which have been announced-access the next day to broadcast content streamed to their Xbox Live." Certainly some deals with programmers don't require an operator "authentication" to stream online TV content.
So is this good news for Hulu Plus customers? I'd love to find out what percentage of Hulu Plus customers have retained their cable subscription and what percentage has cut the cable cord. It seems by this announcment that the Hulu Plus strategy is migrating to a model that is trying not to hurt the cable subscription business. But can you have your cake and eat it too.
The consumers of Hulu Plus may find that the majority of content they thought they would get would give them the shows they want to watch with the burden of a high priced cable subscription. It now looks like Hulu Plus is moving toward another on demand platform for the cable operator. And if that same cable operator is already authenticating its customers on devices for web access, why should that same customer have any need to take a Hulu Plus subscription. It seems unnecessary.
It is obvious that TV content creators are experimenting as a means to determine the most ideal digital distribution model. We are becoming an on demand world where consumers want access to what they want to watch, where they want and when they want. And cost for this convenience is also a factor. Ultimately the consumer may pay more for their a la carte choices but feel more satisfied paying less overall for only the content they want to watch.
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