ABC Sitcom Pops Up On Hulu, Sorta
As anyone who uses Hulu regularly could tell you, the lack of shows from ABC and CBS can, on occasion, be glaring. If you need to get your CSI: Miami fix or Grey’s Anatomy booster, you need to check in to the respective network’s own web properties, or a small selection of other sites such as Sling.com or TV.com.
However, at least one ABC show has popped up on the NBC Universal-News Corp. owned video site.
When checking out last Sunday’s King of The Hill (a Fox show) on Hulu, I was given the option of viewing three regular commercial spots spread throughout the episode, or an extended trailer for the new ABC sitcom Better Off Ted.
In other words, ABC isn’t putting full episodes of its shows on Hulu to drum up some extra revenue (albeit chump change in the grand scheme of things). It is, however, willing to pay up and have commercials for its shows to be seen right before programming from competing networks.
Hulu CEO Jason Kilar has repeatedly said in public appearances that he wants to make his site a one-stop shop for user’s entertainment needs. To that end, he has tried to earn goodwill by turning Hulu into a video search engine. If you go to the site and search for Private Practice , Hulu will pull up clips and full episodes of the ABC drama, linking back to ABC.com. That feature has been enabled since the site launched last year.
The primary goals of linking back were to make the site easier for users, and eventually to lure ABC (or CBS) to put their own shows on Hulu. I suppose advertising revenue is, in some respects, even better.
xavier commented:
HULU.COM Even Has The Guts And The Balls To Post Clips Of Their FOX TV Shows (Like Family Guy) With An Advertisement Embedded On The Video To Come And Visit The HULU Site To Watch The Full
FancastFan commented:
Alex, you should also be aware of Fancast.com - unlike Hulu it already is a great one-stop hub from content with programming from ALL the major networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, the WB, Bravo, AMC, FX - AND the Viacom cable channels like Comedy Central. Fancast even has programming from the pay channels too, and, again, all free.
Take a look at the TV library (under the Full TV Episodes tab on Fancast.com), and with literally thousands of hours of content, you could get lost for hours in there - and yes, even "Lost," the TV show! :)
Cheers,
Jim (for Fancast)
me commented:
it's too bad abc doesn't put their shows on hulu because their media player is terribly awful. i stopped watching abc shows because of it...(if i couldn't keep up with missed shows, what was the point of even watching them?)
they offer no video help either. i searched and apparently MANY people have problems with abc's video player and couldn't get help. (they have software on there that is like the old time anti-copying movie software and it really messes things up - they are so afraid someone will download content from their site - when really all they are doing is driving people to unauthorized sites to watch their content and they have no control and don't make any money on it - shooting themselves in the foot.)
HULU is THE go-to one-stop shopping place for the most part, they are missing out and losing audience. (i checked out tv.com, but they don't have many full episodes and it's poorly organized.)
killertv commented:
ABC didn't put this on Hulu - I have to think 20th did as it makes sense for News Corp to use its site for a News Corp studio show.
More interestingly, LEGEND OF THE SEEKER has been on Hulu for months. That's produced by ABC Studios and aired in first-run syndication. What's the story there?
joeyjoey73 commented:
Sling.com has NBC, Fox, CBS and MTV content, far more than Hulu.