GATINEAU – While CRTC commissioners, Canadian politicians and the usual industry suspects try to figure out how best to alter the regulation of the Canadian TV business, the electronic media world around us continues on its merry path of explosive growth.
Lost a little on this side of the border, amid the swirl of chatter on issues like fee for carriage, the viability of local content, whether or not conventional broadcasters can survive a battered economy, and if television stations can really sell for a buck, was the announcement that Disney is spending US$100 million to take a 27% ownership position in Hulu and make much of its content available through the site.
Launched about a little over two years ago by original co-owners NBC Universal and Fox, Hulu has risen, by many measures, to be the third-most watched video site in the world, behind YouTube and Google.
This is an achievement since while YouTube can be watched globally, Hulu’s videos can only be seen in the States. It served up 380 million videos in March to YouTube’s 5.9 billion.
Tiny by comparison but he difference, of course, between it and everything else is that Hulu is a gorgeous broadband video clearing house, home to the premium, professional, hyper-popular content found on three of the four main networks (CBS so far is sticking to its TV.com portal, for the time being). Plus, advertisers are far more attracted to the primo video on Hulu than the unpredictable content on YouTube.
The on-line aggregator also offers a selection of television shows, clips and movies from 150 other content companies – and through 35 other destination sites such as AOL, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo!.
In short, it’s a fabulous place to watch TV.
The Hulu announcement was actually made official during CTV’s appearance in front of the CRTC last Thursday as the broadcaster made its case for license renewals of its OTA stations.
So, we asked CTV CEO Ivan Fecan after his appearance in front of the Commission whether or not he was worried about Hulu’s potential impact on the traditional Canadian business of rebroadcasting American television, especially since Hulu’s goal is to go global.
When you attempt to log on to Hulu while in Canada, this is the screen that pops up:
“Hulu is committed to making its content available worldwide. To do so, we must work through a number of legal and business issues, including obtaining international streaming rights. Know that we are working to make this happen and will continue to do so. Given the international background of the Hulu team, we have both a professional and personal interest in bringing Hulu to a global audience.”
If such a thing happens, it would not only devalue the properties being made available at the likes of ctv.ca and globaltv.com, but also what’s offered on the conventional Canadian broadcasters.
Fecan is certain, however, that Hulu will remain an American phenomenon. “They are not going to eliminate geo-gating. They won’t,” he told Cartt.ca last week. For the uninitiated, geo-gating technology figures out where your computer is and blocks it from viewing copyrighted material in certain areas where other companies may own the rights.
When pressed, noting that Hulu’s goal is to go global (it’s now hired people to look at its international business development opportunities) and sell advertising around its online content viewed by a global audience, Fecan added: “When Hulu actually makes money, they might.”
Granted, we conceded, it doesn’t make money, but still, if it did open up its content for viewing beyond the U.S. border, doesn’t that impact the CTV business plan?
“We’ll see. I won’t speculate,” responded Fecan. “If Hulu wants to pay whatever it is we pay as a country for U.S. program rights, that’s great, but at the moment, they don’t make money.”
All right, but what about a Canadian-made Hulu, especially since both Global and CTV have the rights to show much of their foreign and Canadian shows online.
Fecan was non-committal.
“If I did have that interest it would be a matter of corporate strategy and I’d either be announcing it or not telling you,” he added.
