Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

The Stylings of Hulu Head Jason "Jerry Maguire" Kilar Over the Years

After reading Hulu CEO Jason Kilar’s most excellent recent blog post taking aim at how television and cable companies (i.e., his bosses) deliver and the follow-up piece by MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka (“Is Jason Kilar Trying to Get Fired?”), BoomTown had an intense feeling of déjà vu.

That’s because–even though what he wrote put the knickers of the Hollywood/New York media bigwigs who own the premium video service into a series of ever more painful knots–it is a variation of things Kilar (pictured here) has been saying for quite awhile now.

Including in homespun videos by me!*

As you will see below, though Kilar’s essay was designed to tweak, it was by no means a geek version of a Howard Beale “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” moment either.

Here is a quintet of video interviews in which Kilar talks about the end of linear television watching, the need for browser-based TV sets, how hard it is to build paywalls (and real ones, too) and more.

As you will see, it would be a shame if the clearly talented Kilar can’t eat lunch in this town for restating what he has long maintained, even though a happy ending here does seem unlikely.

Until we find out how the story ends, here’s Kilar talking, from 2008 to last summer:

April, 2008 at Hulu HQ in Santa Monica, Calif.:

December, 2008 at Hulu HQ:

January, 2009 at Sundance Film Festival (Kilar is at 8:00 mark):

July, 2010 at Hulu HQ:

December, 2010 at Hulu’s New York office:

*And one by Peter Kafka.

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