Archive notice: This article was originally published on November 2, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
announced on Monday. Cooperation agreements were also concluded with Sony and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The service is starting in the USA with series such as «24», «House», «Monk» or «The Simpsons» and feature films such as «Sideways» or «Lost in Space».
The launch of Hulu is a clear sign of the transformation of the
US television industry, which is increasingly losing viewers’ attention to the Internet. Shortly before the launch of its own service, NBC had withdrawn all its videos from the popular video website YouTube. The media industry is engaged in sometimes fierce battles with it because numerous users also post copyrighted material on the Internet there. US experts see Hulu as a strong competitor for YouTube. The media groups are currently accelerating their experiments with online television.
Free programming is also available, for example, from the newly launched video service Joost – though with significantly fewer prominent names than Hulu. Another business model for online video is to offer the programmes and films for money, as is done in the USA by Apple’s iTunes Store or Amazon.com, for example, and in Germany by services such as Maxdome or in2movies. NBC had fallen out with Apple in the summer and the network’s series disappeared from the iTunes Store. Hulu initially operates in beta by invitation only. The programmes are, however, also intended to be available via partner websites such as Yahoo!, MSN, or myspace.