Chicago (IL) – A News Corp executive confirmed that he may be looking into ways to diversify the video site’s revenue base. At least some of Hulu’s content could soon be only available to subscribers.
Jonathan Miller, News Corp’s chief digital officer, said at a recent conference that he believes “at least some of the TV shows and movies” should only be available to subscribers. What is interesting about this statement is that he was just recently appointed to his position and has yet to attend a Hulu board meeting. So a fee-based Hulu may only be his opinion, in the end.
Hulu is co-owned by News Corp., NBC Universal and Disney.
But subscriptions within Hulu may raise questions yet again, if consumers are willing to pay for content that is often attainable for free elsewhere. And if it is not, is there enough value in Hulu for consumers to shell out money to watch TV on their PCs or mobile devices? And would Hulu drop ad interruptions within video content for those subscribers?
There are no examples that have been able to successfully introduce and maintain such a subscription model yet and even YouTube, which has the market reach and content to at least attempt certain subscription-based services carefully stays away from such a strategy.
Chime in and let us whether you would pay for Hulu.
