Turmoil at Hulu

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the TV networks have started to complain that Hulu’s rising viewership is cannibalizing their own web offerings. The networks are saying that they’re effectively competing with themselves for viewers and ad dollars. Consequently, the networks are contemplating drastic changes, including delaying the availability of new episodes on Hulu for 2 weeks or more.

The Journal article details all of the challenges that video services face as customers habits are changing, and as program providers worry that more viewers will switch from traditional services such as cable and satellite to Internet viewing. Hulu’s management, meanwhile, is considering a new plan to morph Hulu into a “virtual cable operator,” which "would use the Web to send live TV channels and video-on-demand content to subscribers."