Hulu, the US online video service offering TV shows and movies for free, is considering ways of drawing revenue and it is now planning to charge for some episodes of popular shows. Since its launch in 2008, the video website, a joint venture of NBC Universal, News Corp., Walt Disney Co. and Providence Equity Partners, has grown rapidly, gaining ground as the most popular video site after YouTube. Hulu has proved that long-form professional content is attractive to the online audience just as much as it is on TV. The service has reported so many viewers that, in December 2009, it received 1 billion video views, quadrupling the viewership numbers with respect to the year before. Its entertainment offerings has been extended enormously and, if originally it carried shows only from NBC, Fox and few independents, now it can offer 70.000 titles from more than 220 content partners including A&E, E: Entertainment Television, PBS and The National Football League, with access restricted to the USA for copyright reasons. Despite its success, Hulu can't survive on advertising revenue alone and even if the online service soared to popularity by offering free online viewing of popular TV shows, Hulu is still struggling to turn a profit and its move to a paying business model seems necessary to let the site survive. An actual timeframe has not been given, but Hulu is preparing charge for its video service. The chosen pay model seems to foresee a monthly subscription fee of $4.99 for older content, while maintaining the ability to stream the five most recent episodes of any current TV show. A better idea for the pricing model could emerge within six months. The real question is what viewers expect to watch free online and what they would be willing to pay for. Hulu believes it will need at least 20 TV series to make such a pay service attractive to users. However, a free version of the site will always be available. The online service would not be the only one considering a subscription model because of slowing online ad revenue. YouTube also plans to charge for some content in order to stimulate revenue growth that online advertising has not provided. Hulu does not just want to diversify its revenue base, but it is also considering expanding onto mobile devices and beyond US boundaries. In particular it is interested in the German and UK markets.

L'articolo è tratto dall'ultimo numero di Turning Digital, la newsletter quindicinale focalizzata sui temi della TV digitale e dei broadband content ed è parte dell'offerta multiclient di ITMedia Consulting.