This is my room

Why hulu should stop caring about hulu.com

This isn’t going to be a clear, concise and straightforward explanation, but rather a variety of thoughts, which if twisted and turned and put in the right order, will make the proper case.

1. hulu does not appear to have a viable long term business model. They have enough problems selling inventory as it is, and it will only be a short while longer before all the MSOs each have their own full service portals.
2. Online video growth for full-length content has already gone through its most dramatic cycle and is most likely only going to see modest (but still decent) growth from here on out.  mobile consumption wont boost viewership dramatically, as we’re not capable of being mobile AND paying attention to long-form content.  public transit is pretty much the only suitable area for consumption
3. Even with the growth we’ve seen online viewing, the older demographic (which also has all the income) is not going to die off anytime soon, leaving the vast majority of viewing to occur on the television for some time
4. hulu has never released breakdowns of what content people are watching, but it’s my guess that the majority of viewing can be attributed to network programming, and a variety of pick-of-the-week clips. This is the very same content that people currently DVR on their television, and that MSOs will most likely reach out for VoD rights.  It’s also the same content available on the “network.com” sites.  Netflix, Blockbuster and PPV have the movie route covered.
5. hulu cant charge for its service (bc of point #4)

hulu should rethink it’s long term strategy and should embrace the MSOs and telcos.  I don’t have Comcast, but I’ve heard the majority of Fancast content is hulu.  This is where hulu should focus its efforts.  It should become the respresentative of online content for networks.  It will allow the networks to manage what is “free” and what gets rolled up into MSOs+Telcos online offering.  It also, and most importantly, creates a common platform for advertising.

2003 v. 2009

I’m not impressed with the “highlights” of this latest Nielsen report. 2003 to 2009 comparisons are of very limited value. Everyone knows and accepts social media and video has changed the game. Read the full report and pay closer attention to the 08/09 comparisons.

Qu’ils mangent de la brioche!

I have not seen any information implying that offering full episodic content online is at the expense of increased television viewing. Until that time comes, I believe it’s fair to say that so long as operating costs can be covered by advertising to millions of viewers each day, watching millions of ads, than there is no reason to expect content will stop being available online.

True, the concerns of future cannibalization could lead networks to act sooner rather than later. But who knows what the MSOs are planning in the the meantime. Given the expectations of millions of viewers now accustomed to watching content online legally, any quick removal of content would surely create a breeding ground for rampant piracy.

Regardless of the outcome, consumers should not be the least bit worried of being able to watch content on their laptop, desktops, and phones. Content owners know people will watch content on those platforms, and they’ll take some revenue rather than none. Of course, none of this means that hulu is the right platform or solution.

One of the big differences between advertising on television and advertising on Internet television, is that a measurement standard is in place for evaluating different properties. To date, you can rarely find weekly online viewership numbers for the latest episodes of Lost, The Office, Heroes, 24 or any other shows for that matter. Perhaps the networks are sharing these numbers with their advertisers. But given that the only public information are monthly viewers or videos played (and distributed 30-60 days after the month being reported), I find it hard to believe they are.

Nielsen is wrong.

Forget the intro, I’m jumping right in -

Contrary to some recent popular media coverage suggesting that more Americans are rediscovering “free TV” via the Internet, computer video tends to be quite small with an average time of just two minutes (a little more than 0.5 percent) a day.

WRONG.  There is a major fallacy in the logic.  I’m surprised it hasn’t been picked up, and even more surprised that it’s being somewhat propagated by NewTeeVee. The problem with this statement is that television distributed via the Internet is an extremely SMALL portion of all the video available on the web.  Drawing conclusions from averages say nothing of the growth that exists within the Internet Television (ITV) domain.  Here’s the original Nielsen/CRE press release.

From the archives of the ITVT Newsletter:

ABC.com users watched a record 815 million minutes of full-length episodes on the player during the month, representing a 53% increase over the previous month and a 110% increase over May, 2007. In addition, ABC says, viewers watched 37 million episodes, representing an increase of 27% over the previous month, and each viewer generally watched multiple episodes during the month.

…and further down in the same release:

Since launching in 2006, approximately 400 million episodes have been initiated through the ABC.com Full Episode Player.

So what’s wrong with this picture?  It’s a fundamental problem that the industry has been avoiding for the past few years.  There is a clear difference between “video being distributed over the public Internet” and “long form episodic content being distributed over the public Internet, for consumption on computers, laptops, mobile devices and (gasp) televisions!”

The real shame in all of this is the industry’s lack of attention to this playout environment.  There is a lot of opportunity for advertising in 400m episodes.  To be more precise, there are over 1 billion opportunities for ads in ~400m episodes.

Update:  In all fairnes to Chris and the NewTeeVee staff, they do call out concern for that data point.  However, it’s not done until the very last paragraph, while the front page summary leaves the claim unchallenged.

Hulu Grew 33% in February, I think.

I’m quite fed up with the latest Hulu viewership report.  Why is it that the title of NewTeeVee’s latest article is “Hulu Grew 33% in February,” and not “comScore and Nielsen differ by a factor of 4″ ???

If I can’t actualy count on the numbers (no pun intended), I don’t care about how much anyone apparently grew.    I suppose that the 33% is a consistent increase across the different reporting systems, but it’s lost on me why the numbers are so dramatically different in the first place.  Streams are close, but still look to be ~10% different.  Unique viewer counts exhibit a horrendous difference.  And viewing times don’t appear to exhibit any consistent correlation.

What is the actual problem with capturing accurate information?  Is it the platform’s ability to capture information?  Is it the methodology behind the reporting services’ calculations?  Or is it the implementation of all the different pieces of technology by the content provider?

I suppose it’s good that we’ve essentially got two different ratings agencies’ numbers.  But it’s a disappointment that NewTeeVee isn’t ushering in an era of reliability.  Urging comScore and Hulu to sync up on their data release schedule isn’t enough; and to be honest, it’s not even that important.