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Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

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Re: Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

#111

Post by mortehu »

Moto7451 wrote: post #107
samstave wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have had a Hulu account for the last two years. I recently canceled it. Their content is actually not that good, and on top of it, you're forced to watch commercials as well. The service was terrible.

I've never understood why people dislike the commercials so much. Most of their half hour (21 minute) shows only contain at most three minutes of commercials spread through the show. At worse you're sitting through a minute break from the show. People pay $100+ per month and seem to live through tens of minutes of commercials per show. Plus is about having device and HD access more than anything. I like it as I get f…

> I've never understood why people dislike the commercials so much.

Many people are making so much money that the cost of TV shows will never be an issue, if only someone were willing to sell it to them. They still only have 24 hours in a day, and they are being shown ads they have seen many times before, and those ads weren't interesting in the first place.

TV users can easily use a DVR to skip ads.

Re: Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

#112

Post by nraynaud »

steveklabnik wrote: post #92
pvnick wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say we're already screwed if we're allowing governments to get in situations where they "consider Yahoo's reputation." That's none of their damn business.

Given that they own a bunch of stock in Orange, yes, it literally is their business.

a bunch like in biggest shareholder. I still don't know if I agree with the action made in my name tho. I'm not in this anti-state crap, I just wonder how to make efficient militant shareholder decisions. To their credit they are trying something.

Re: Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

#113

Post by pdevr »

There is a strategy behind this - Tumblr, now Hulu. She is acquiring content generating properties. Whether it will succeed or not remains to be seen, but kudos to her for trying!

To those who say it has been tried before by other CEOs: Flickr and Delicious generate pictures and bookmarks. Pictures and bookmarks have pathetic monetization rates, compared to articles/blog posts. With Hulu, it gets better - awesome paid subscription rates, along with monetization via advertising.

Re: Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

#114

Post by kunle »

"In 2011, Hulu’s owners put the company up for sale and were looking for a bid of at least $2 billion; in exchange, they would offer content licenses that would run for two to three years."

Given that Hulu is now owned by the folks who license its content, any new buyer/owner can expect to pay astronomically more (think of what happens to Netflix every few years as they license content) or lose access to content every few years. Essentially, the owners would sell you the company and retain the option to put you out of business. It's a really bad deal.

Re: Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

#115

Post by nly »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #17
gcb0 wrote: post #5

whoever buys Hulu is going to regret when they find out all the content deals goes up in smoke when the company change hands.

The content deals they currently have in place are so one-sided that there little to be gained by owning Hulu. Their contracts are basically, you get a license to the content, but 95% of any revenues you generate must be given to the content partners. The whole point of Hulu was to stop piracy and return any cash generated to the content providers, not to be a profitable ongoing business. I don't even know what it me…

Maybe they want to own it so they can get exclusive control over the ads. The platform really allows many of the kinds of ad revenues Youtube can generate, so could be a sweet deal for both content owners and Yahoo.

Re: Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

#117

Post by wamatt »

Moto7451 wrote: post #107
samstave wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have had a Hulu account for the last two years. I recently canceled it. Their content is actually not that good, and on top of it, you're forced to watch commercials as well. The service was terrible.

I've never understood why people dislike the commercials so much. Most of their half hour (21 minute) shows only contain at most three minutes of commercials spread through the show. At worse you're sitting through a minute break from the show. People pay $100+ per month and seem to live through tens of minutes of commercials per show. Plus is about having device and HD access more than anything. I like it as I get f…

>I've never understood why people dislike the commercials so much.

Speaking from a purely speculative and subjective opinion, it could be partially due to neurodiversity within the population. The root cause could be that differing clusters of people have differing cognitive processing abilities.

For example, personally I despise commercials, because they break the flow, and force a context switch. Similarly, movement on the computer screen, whilst trying to read text is highly stressful to me. For this reason, I choose to install extensions (adblockers etc) to make sure that the screen is static, and only moves when I want it to.

Some people try to control their environment, others tend to adapt. Case in point, my oldest friend, is the opposite to me, and he doesn't mind adverts, or distractions, and actually prefers to study with music playing. I'm constantly amazed how others like him, manage to blend so efficiently into the environment.

Re: Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

#119

Post by 616c »

I see a lot of people down the thread complaining about advertising and saying how it has become a normalized part of the experience.

I tried scanning the thread, but ironically more knowledgeable people have not mentioned cable television did not originally have ads; at least one of my parents said this was the appeal of premium cable at its inception. Wikipedia kind of confirms this in several places, but does not discuss the history of ads on cable TV specifically, which I would want to read more about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United...

So, keep in mind it is the lazy or indifferent among us who let them get on cable in the first place, so surprise surprise Hulu and other content providers are not going to diverge from the inertia of greediness set by their industry decades ago.

Also, not to defend Hulu, but they tried a lot of experimenting with fronting the ads in blocks so you can watch shows interrupted. I respected they made an effort, and they need to show with ad revenue and subscriptions (just like cable companies and satellite providers before them) they can use these models on the web to turn a profit. I actually considered Hulu subscription, even if it is garbage, because supporting legit streaming content in any form is the only way to drive it home to these morons in the entertainment industry that I want internet-based services, not DVDs, movie theaters, set-top boxes with encryption cards, etc.

Re: Yahoo submits bid for Hulu

#120

Post by randomfool »

jpatel3 wrote: post #78

I think Vimeo might be better acquisition than Hulu.

Agree. It seems much more complementary to Flickr, and avoids all of the negotiation with the networks that any deal with Hulu would entail.

This article is a leak, the question is by whom, and to what purpose. The cynic in me says that Yahoo made some lowball offer and Hulu leaked it to try to drum up more interest.

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