Daily Show And Colbert Report Dropped From Hulu: What's Next?
In a way, Hulu helped to revolutionize the way we view content. Now, tons of online portals have opened up for providing looks at programming that was reserved for the television just four or five years ago, but this type of breakthrough also brings along growing pains. Growing pains such as the removal of support from Boxee (which is still being debated, even in Congress) and the removal of some of Hulu's most popular programs. This week, parent company Viacom has announced that it will soon yank "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" from Hulu, with Hulu's own Andy Forssell (senior VP of content and distribution) saying that Hulu couldn't secure rights to both shows from Comedy Central beyond March 9.
This whole situation brings up an interesting debate. Clearly, these two shows cater to the demographic most likely to tune into Hulu; younger professionals with busy lives and no real way to carve out specific hours to watch shows. In other words, these viewers would be most likely to watch online versus on TV, and Comedy Central may be seeing this as an opportunity to grab subscription fees. Both shows, strangely enough, will continue to be posted online for free viewing at their respective official sites, but users will have to manually surf over there rather than just pulling up Hulu and using that portal.
So, what will this mean for the future of Internet TV? Well, it pretty much cements the fact that it's not going away. If Comedy Central executives care enough about how many people are watching via Hulu, then it's a pretty safe bet to assume that these shows will keep coming online. The real question is: will they eventually cost anything to view outside of watching ads?
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I am not to happy on this one. I watch NetV regularly now, and these programs as well as Bill Mar content, has become a norm for me. I also watch Saturday night live clips etc, but I almost always watch these 3 shows on the computer, rather than the TV. Of course a point beyond that I do subscribe to Comcast, and they are really hitting on all cylinders with NetV availability of programs. Either way I think this is a bad idea, of course I will most likely just go to the site. I also get many links from the Huffington post as well, which would not really be included in this deal either. As far as it goes I do still have a few programs I watch on regular TV, however in general my TV is more tuned to PBS, with my 3 year old watching it. I would say I get at least even exposure on TV and WEB for my programming now. Of course I as many on here am generally an early adapter to. So this may not be the same in the general public. However; in general I notice with the speed up of technology, this has become less of a time line as well. The general public in many ways is only a year generally behind, at least with adoption of things like this. So the media market is going to have no choice I think, but to make sure they stay on top of this. I in general also do not see this as doing that. |
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This was a long time coming. The Colbert Report and The Daily Show are already available online for free on Comedy Central, I can see why Viacom didn't want to lose advertising revenue to Hulu. |
Based on what you said I can fully understand why this has happened. However, if there is a show I refuse to see leave Hulu, it's House and Family Guy. I will rage so hard if that happens.
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gibbersome:|
Well as I said I watch these shows pretty frequently. I don't watch them on HULU in general, although I am also a Comcast user, so things on HULU that are "off" of the service, are also not exactly off for me as HULU is also part of the viewer on Comcast as well. SO basically I can watch stuff on HULU that others can't unless they use a service which they work with as I do. |
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Well, just so you all know, you can catch full episodes of both shows at Fancast: http://www.fancast.com/tv/The-Colbert-Report/94816/full-episodes Denise (Fancast Team) |
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Oh I know I usually link to them from other places, Comedy Central has to make there money to. |
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