"Once waiting is history, will quality television still pack the same cultural punch?"

[DavidSeven]

This depends on how you look at it.

Hulu is in the top five video sites on the web (behind Google, Fox, and Yahoo). About 30 million people watch their streams every month. Only 3 million of those are Hulu Plus subscribers.

By contrast, Netflix has around 25 million members.

I'm guessing those numbers are skewed in favor of sites that offer shorter video clips that can be embedded throughout the web. Google (via YouTube), Fox, Yahoo and Hulu are such sites. Netflix obviously is not.

People pressing play on a video embedded on a Huffington Post story probably aren't as captive an audience as those who specifically seek out full-length TV/movies on the web. I think subscriber levels and viewing times on source sites are a better measure in this discussion.

[Irish]

I'm guessing those numbers are skewed in favor of sites that offer shorter video clips that can be embedded throughout the web. Google (via YouTube), Fox, Yahoo and Hulu are such sites. Netflix obviously is not.

True. These numbers are also largely self reported, which adds another wrinkle. But: The average time on site for Google and Yahoo etc might be 15 minutes. For Hulu, unsurprisingly, it's around 60. So I think Hulu definitely had the traffic, and eyeballs, to make a real go of original content and compete with Netflix and Amazon.

Hulu's problem has always been one of perception. The ambivalence of their corporate masters is reflected in the kind of press Hulu receives. Nobody in tech or entertainment seems to think that Hulu will be around in five years, and throughout their existence they've always been perceived as hanging by a thread.

That makes it a lot harder to get a positive message out and attract new viewers and paying subscribers to the service.

[number8]

The Wachowskis and J. Michael Straczynski are teaming up for a sci-fi series on Netflix.

Netflix will bring Georgeville Television's Sense8, a gripping global tale of minds linked and souls hunted, exclusively to its members to watch instantly in late 2014.


The 10 episode season one of Sense8 marks the first foray into television by the Wachowskis, the creative geniuses behind Bound, The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, V for Vendetta, Speed Racer and Cloud Atlas, and is the latest project from veteran show runner J. Michael Straczynski , creator of the Hugo Award-winning Babylon 5 TV series and whose film credits include Changeling, Thor and Underworld Awakening,

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...200215501.html