Online streaming service Hulu hit the headlines twice this week when they announced that, firstly, when an as-yet unnamed company made an unsolicited enquiry regarding acquisition, and then, secondly, that they were indeed, open to offers of acquisition. This follows yet more recent news and opinions on the future of Hulu, with constant talk of an IPO, then its subsequent delay.

The streaming giant has caused quite a stir in Hollywood, and opinion has been pretty divided: some say it is the savior of TV, others say it has affected film industry jobs for the worse. Their launch of a premium subscription service, Hulu Plus, last year helped the company edge into solid profitability territory, and obviously peaked the interest of some internet big wigs. NBCUniversal, Fox and Disney-ABC all currently have stakes in Hulu, yet have limited influence on the overall running of the company, and this had led to clashes among board members and CEO Jason Kilar about the way it has affected older revenue streams of cable and TV. This may in turn be the reason for those holding companies looking to exit the venture.

Hulu announced that it would retain investment banks Guggenheim Partners and Morgan Stanley on Wednesday, who will then reach out to any prospective bidders with news that they are formally accepting offers. Expect the rumor-mill to start churning very soon.

The success of Hulu is largely due to their free ad-funded model, which also allows embedded videos of new and archived content, as well as clips and behind-the-scenes specials from providers and studios such as NBC, Fox, ABC and many more. Recently, the free-thinking institution TED has enable Hulu to share and distribute their series of ground-breaking talks. The embedded feature helps clips such as this go viral…

Hulu’s actions may well be blazing a path for the future of visual content for the end user, but the key TV networks and companies sure have kicked up a fuss along the way.


by Lee Jarvis.

Most people know the story of Orson Wells’ infamous radio broadcast. On October of 1938, Wells perpetrated one of the greatest hoaxes in American history. He was able to convince the general public that an alien invasion was taking place in rural New Jersey. The ensuing panic was widespread, unlike anything most police and government officials had ever seen. By the time the “Martians” landed in Jersey, all hell had broken loose. Because most people only tuned in once they’d heard about the “news” from friends, they missed the announcement that the broadcast was a fake (and to be fair, Wells didn’t try overly hard to convince them otherwise once the program was in full swing). Many joined in just in time to hear how a group of aliens were destroying homes and entire towns, many using some horrific type of Martian gas on the unsuspecting populace. When the broadcast was finished, and Wells came on to explain how the story was akin to dressing up on Halloween, the damage had been done: tens (if not hundreds) of thousands believed the broadcast to be real, and many of them were genuinely terrified.

In the end, the broadcast caused an important shift in public perception concerning news and its delivery. CBS, though it did not face public censure, promised in the future not to use the phrase “We interrupt this program—” for anything other than real news bulletins. But beyond that, an even more important aspect of the hoax was revealed: the power of radio (and, later, television) to reach a vast audience. At that time, even phones were not available to the entire public. Many still relied on word of mouth to receive (and confirm or disprove) breaking news, along with their trusty radios. Lost, perhaps, in the anger at being duped by a radio show was the fact that so many had heard it to begin with.

Flash-forward to today. We live in a multi-media age, where news is broken in real time. When the events of September 11^th happened, many of us (myself included) watched the news on television while also streaming news feeds online from Fox News, CNN, or MSNBC. It was an unprecedented amount of information available on a 24-hour feed, and it fit with the idea that audiences have become more discerning, if not more demanding. Unlike that night in October of 1938, the horrors of 9-11 were witnessed first-hand, in living color, by most of the nation. We didn’t need word-of-mouth to tell us whether what we were seeing was real – we could see for ourselves. Like those in 1938, we huddled together, barely able to comprehend what we were hearing. But unlike Wells’ hoax, our tragedy was much too real.