Hulu has some branding to do

More than half of the people who have watched Tina Fey’s uncanny performance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live as John McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have done so online, reports Solutions Research Group via AdAge.  Some 23% of those views came via YouTube, including video of news and talk shows showing clips of the skit, which NBC can’t block. Only 17% and 4% of the views took place on NBC.com and Hulu.com.

My guess joins that of informed experts who think people aren’t turning to Hulu – the first place I went — because they don’t know about it. SRG does report that SNL’s recent online success has improved awareness for Hulu, boosting it to 25% of American Internet users, up from 15% in July. Meanwhile, people going to YouTube are only seeing clips of the skit instead of the whole thing because that’s the only video portal they are aware of.

In past posts, I’ve said it’s silly for NBC to block YouTube from airing these NBC-branded videos because all exposure is good exposure. Now I’m going to change my mind a bit and say something that might be considered Internet fascism by some: perhaps it is better to keep these popular videos off YouTube, thus forcing people to discover Hulu. It’s taking a while, but it won’t be long before Hulu is the first place they check. What’s more, once they get there I am sure they’ll go back because there’s so much content on the site and it’s so well organized.