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During the Congress hearing examining the Comcast acquisition of NBC Universal Rep. Rick Boucher Presses NBC About Hulu Practices Toward Boxee.

Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA): What about Boxee? Mr. Zucker you probably are in a better position to answer that. Did Hulu block the Boxee users from access to the Hulu programs?

Zucker (NBC): This was a decision made by the Hulu management to, uh, what Boxee was doing was illegally taking the content that was on Hulu without any business deal. And, you know, all, all the, we have several distributors, actually many distributors of the Hulu content that we have legal distribution deals with so we don’t preclude distribution deals. What we preclude are those who illegally take that content.

Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA): “Well would you have negotiations with Boxee upon request?”

Zucker (NBC): “We have always said that we’re open to negotiations.”

I’m overjoyed to see congress pressing NBC about their issues with Boxee and Hulu.  They have had past issues with streaming content online and now with Comcast set to take over I fear those issues will only get worse.

Boxee uses a web browser to access Hulu’s content – just like Firefox or Internet Explorer. Boxee users click on a link to Hulu’s website and the video within that page plays. We don’t “take” the video. We don’t copy it. We don’t put ads on top of it. The video and the ads play like they do on other browsers or on Hulu Desktop.

The big difference between boxee and other browsers are that boxee took the effort to make their product available on other platforms that connect easily to the TV.  This is unfortunately perceived as a threat by those studios who don’t get the change in the way audiences want to consume their media.  We go into more detail on Speculative Fiction Today #405 “Many Mini Chucks”.

Zucker’s response makes me cringe because it sounds like the health care debate all over again.  One side says hey lets negotiate on this and the other side says they are more then willing to negotiate yet their actions shows no intention of doing so.

(via Boxee Blog)

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Would you be willing to pay $4.99 per month subscription to Hulu for more content?

Image via Wikipedia

Hulu is considering limiting free episodes for some TV series to the latest five, and charging $4.99 a month for access to the rest. They are looking to offer at least 20 new and older series in this fashion to entice users. More concrete pricing plans could be announced within six months. (via /film)

I would be willing to pay $4.99 per month subscription so long as there is some great value added in.

• Getting access to more episodes then just the 5 latest ones
• not having to wait long for the episode to air
• I would even be willing to pay some more if they could throw in a Boxee App and / or X-Box App so that I can watch Hulu on my TV.

I would not be willing to pay for

• Access to individual shows, If I wanted to do that I would continue to buy the DVD’s and order them through iTunes.
• Basic access:  The corporate overlords need to realize the true value in a freemium model.  There are many shows that I would not have bought on DVD or even watched if they had not been on Hulu.  Keeping the shows free both increases sales and reduces piracy.

With more to be announced in six months I will have to keep the faith that the Hulu experiment will be allowed to grow instead of being hamstrung further by their corporate masters News Corp. Disney, and soon to be Comcast.

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Some sad news out, GE is moving forward on a deal between Comcast and NBC.

Image via Wikipedia

Under the terms of that deal, Comcast would own 51 percent of the new entity, which would combine NBC Universal’s broadcast network, theme parks, movie studio, and cable-television channels USA, Bravo, CNBC and MSNBC with Comcast cable networks E! Entertainment, Versus and Golf Channel.

What does this mean for Hulu?

Hulu would then have 2/3 of their owners more interested in the company going away rather then succeeding.

Comcast is interested in keeping the public watching appointment TV and paying for a cable bill, putting their interests against Hulu.

Disney owners of ABC have a long history of ownership issues which is only furthered by the odd change in Hulu’s direction with their acquisition this year.  This season’s lessening of Hulu with many shows on a one week delay and the things going down with yanking Eastwick.

I’m not so concerned that Hulu would get shut down overnight.  What I do see as a possible future is a slow corruption in the quality of the product.  Lessening and restricting Hulu from making the advances necessary to grow it’s audience share.  This would allow it to become insignificant and to fade away.

With hope I want to believe that Hulu’s success will keep them from taking this great product away from everyone.  Hope is not enough.

How do we move forward?

What steps do you recommend we take to help the big studios see the value in offering shows streaming online and the value in services like Hulu which can aggregate those shows into a good player?

(via NewTeeVee)

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I am torn about the idea of an iTunes Subscription service.  Rumors are swirling again that it might me on the way.

A subscription service from Apple consisting of a $35 or so monthly fee for access to a large and complete library of current-season television episodes via iTunes would fit well into the TV networks’ overall content strategy — Hulu has proven there is a demand for streaming full episodes, and the cable companies have long shown that consumers are willing to pay for access(NewTeeVee).

When I wrote my Would you pay for a Boxee app? I laid down some ground rules:

Rules for Paid Apps

1. Paid App channels would have to be commercial free.
2. Paid App channels must have a free version to test the content.
3. Apps must be cheap!  The more they cost, the fewer people will pay.
4. Apps should be available for networks and individual shows.

Reasons I would pay for an app

• Premium Channels: HBO and Showtime are top of my list.
• Foreign Content: BBC iPlayer is top on my list, but I have a soft spot for Chinese and Indian TV.
• Supporting Indie Media:  I would pay to support the Guild, Legend of Neil and other shows, but I would expect extras.

Would I pay for an iTunes Subscription Service?

In an era before Hulu, I would definitely would have paid for this, but I am not sure I would now.

If the Price is $35 a month it would have to:

• include many channels that I cannot stream online already
• be commercial free
• allow me to watch the show when it is airing on Cable.
• allow on demand streaming the day the show aired not 24 hours later
• allow all episodes of a season to be on watched at anytime as often as I want
• work on my Mac, PC, AppleTV, and iPod Touch for one fee

I need a lot more details before I know whether I know if I want to pay for this.

What would it take?

What would it take for you to pay for an Apple streaming TV service?

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The number of people who are streaming TV Shows and Movies online is way up.  Now is the time to push Decabling!

Hulu and Netflix are helping in the cause, but we have a lot of work to do.  We need to promote AppleTV (or better the Mac Mini) and Boxee to get more people to move to the next phase, leaving the cable companies for the freedom decabling offers.

How do you think we should push decabling?

(via New TeeVee)

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