And as far as everything else: Nada.

In the past, Jason Kilar has used these state of the company reports to make big declarations about The Future Of TV, or at least the near-term future of Hulu, the joint venture between News Corp., Disney and Comcast (News Corp. also owns this Web site).

Today, there’s none of that. Just the numbers, sir.

And maybe, if you’re into tea-leaf-reading, an oblique reference from Kilar: “So much has changed” since the company’s conception in 2007, he notes.

Which might be, among other things, a reference to big changes behind the scenes with Hulu’s corporate owners, who haven’t had a consistent approach to the site in five years. And/or its employees, who have had a “liquidity event” worth roughly $200 million this fall.

Or maybe it was just some he words he typed up and put on a blog. (I know the feeling!)

Back to the numbers: Hulu will do $695 million in revenue this year. That’s up 65 percent from the $420 million it did last year, when revenue was up 60 percent. And that three-million-plus number for Hulu Plus is two times last year’s tally (Hulu competitor Netflix has around 27 million paid subscribers worldwide).

In the past, Hulu has said that it expects subscription dollars to make up more than half of its total revenue. It doesn’t spell that out here, but I believe it’s still the case.

So that’s all good and bow-worthy for the Hulu team. The questions about how it works with its content/partner owners, and who at Hulu will be around to work with them, we can tackle some other time.

In the ensuing hours, sales for the new gaming console have been brisk, with some stores reporting that inventory has been sold out. Others are predictably trying to sell the hardware on eBay for above-market prices.

But not everything has gone as smoothly as Nintendo would have liked for its first console launch in six years. And there’s no real-world button that will allow Nintendo to restart this day over again.

In widespread reports online, customers are saying that they are experiencing long waits for mandatory software updates, and that some of the device’s most notable features, including the company’s social network, called Miiverse, are not working.

What’s more, not all of the video services are launching as expected. Nintendo said on Friday that Amazon Instant Video and Hulu Plus would not be available at launch. Additionally, its own TVii service, which allows customers to access their TV guide from the GamePad controller and to change the channel from their set-top box using infrared technology, will also not be available. The Netflix app will be available immediately, with the rest coming in December.

A message on Nintendo’s Facebook page today warned that the Miiverse is over capacity. “Oops. So many Miis have jumped on Miiverse that some may be having problems connecting to the service. We are in the engine room getting it fixed!” the post said. The status update received more than 1,000 “Likes” and 300 comments in four hours.

Nintendo did not immediately reply to emails seeking comment.

The Miiverse problems, however, seem to be taking a backseat to the massive software update that all owners must install out of the box. Customers online are reporting hours-long download times, surely made worse by the number of people all trying to get it on Day One.

“The very first thing you need to do is download a system update that’s well over 1 gig in size. It took me 2.5 hours to get it,” wrote one reviewer on Amazon.com, adding that every single game also required an update. In general, he called the operating system and user interface slow. “Want to go to settings? 15 seconds. Want to visit Miiverse? Another 15 seconds. Want to click on a message in Miiverse? Yep, another 15 seconds. Everything is dreadfully slow.”

Kotaku reports that the download rates are reaching up to four or five hours, and that the firmware update could be as large as five gigabytes. The update is needed if players want to access online features, transfer data from another Wii, and visit the Miiverse.

Some first-day hiccups can be expected on launch days, and can be magnified by the fact that consumers are so excited to rip open the box and get started. It’s a situation that will likely be repeated Christmas morning, unless Nintendo acts fast to get more server capacity. Despite the disruptions, Nintendo is benefiting from the number of diehard fans eager to get their hands on the new console, the only new gaming hardware coming out this holiday season.

Today, two configurations became available for sale, including a basic set that costs $300, and a deluxe version that costs $350 and comes with more storage and the Nintendo Land videogame. A strong lineup of titles, including more than 20 games from many third parties, are also for sale.

So far, none of them are remotely close to challenging Reed Hastings and company.

That’s a reasonable conclusion to draw from a new report out from Sandvine, the broadband service company that tracks Internet usage.

Sandvine says that during the Web’s primetime hours, Netflix accounts for 33 percent of “downstream” traffic in North America — much more than any other single site or service.

That’s the same number Netflix posted last spring, when Sandvine predicted that the service’s usage had peaked. And it’s higher than it was in the spring of 2011, before Netflix raised its prices and lost some of its best-known movies.

YouTube accounts for 15 percent of Web use, but that site is almost entirely free. Netflix’s paid competitors generate much smaller numbers: Amazon is at 1.8 percent, Hulu is at 1.1 percent and HBO Go comes in at 0.5 percent.

You can add plenty of caveats to those numbers — they only count home use, for instance, and don’t track wireless usage at all. But if you believe they’re at least directionally accurate, they give Hastings plenty of distance between his service and his newish competitors.

That tracks with anecdotal reports I’ve heard from content providers that sell stuff to both Netflix and Amazon — they tell me that Amazon is buying lots of content for its “Prime Instant Video” service, but that not many people are watching it. And it runs counter to the conclusion I drew from Hastings’s most recent shareholder letter, which I interpreted as a warning that Amazon was making headway.

But if you want to spin this more positively for Amazon, you can do that, too.

Sandvine CEO Dave Caputo says that, until recently, Amazon’s usage numbers were too small to register at all. Now it’s the leader of Netflix’s direct competitors. Hulu, meanwhile, has stayed in place since the last time it showed up in Sandvine’s reports, in the spring of 2011.

Bear in mind that Sandvine is tracking the flow of data via broadband pipes, which means it is tracking usage — and file size – instead of reach. Netflix, for instance, has about 25 million subscribers worldwide, while YouTube boasts some 800 million monthly visitors.

The culprit for the dyspeptic reaction: The company’s Q3 domestic subscription numbers — as well as its guidance for Q4 — fell below investors’ expectations.

But if things are tough for Netflix how, they’re only going to get tougher.

The company used to have the Web home video market more or less to itself, and now it doesn’t. It’s facing competition from Amazon, Hulu and the cable companies, and is about to start fighting a joint venture between Redbox and Verizon.

That’s not a new observation, of course. But in this quarter’s letter to shareholders, Hastings spells out the strengths and weaknesses of many of his competitors, and it makes for very interesting reading. The two biggest takeaways I found on my first scan:

• For the first time, Amazon appears to be making headway against Netflix with its digital offering.
• Netflix doesn’t believe HBO and Time Warner executives when they say they’re not going to sell a Web-only offering. They expect to compete directly with the pay channel, via an a la carte Web offering, in the U.S.

The breakdown: Jeff Bezos and company have been building up a digital streaming service that they’ve been bundling with their Prime service for a couple years now. And for a couple years, Netflix — as well as the studios that sell Amazon their programming — has said that consumers don’t seem to be using Amazon’s service very much.

If I’m interpreting Hastings’ comments correctly, that’s changing. Here’s what Hastings said about Amazon last quarter, which echoes comments he has made for several quarters: “We have yet to see Hulu Plus or Amazon Prime gain meaningful traction relative to our viewing hours.”

But here’s Hastings today: “Our estimate is that viewing of Amazon Prime Instant Video has yet to pass that of Hulu.” Perhaps I’m misreading Hastings’ comments here, but he chooses his words pretty carefully (and I’m told he does write these things himself). And to me, there’s a real difference there — one that reads as if Bezos is coming up in Hasting’s rear-view mirror.

As far as HBO goes, no interpretation needed here. While everyone from Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes on down says that HBO needs to be tied to the pay cable business in the U.S., Hastings says that’s going to change: “We think it will make strategic sense eventually for HBO to go direct-to-consumer in the U.S., and become more of a competitor to Netflix; so, that is our operating assumption …”

It’s possible that Hastings is wrong here — I’m quite sure Bewkes isn’t bringing him in for confidential strategy discussions.

But if he’s right, that’s great news for the “I want ‘Game of Thrones’ and I don’t want to pay for cable” crowd. And a real serious challenge for Hastings and his shareholders.

But adding these boxes to your TV setup means factoring in more wires and easy-to-lose remote controls. And finding the right input for the device through the TV remote can leave even the smartest people feeling dumbfounded.

Roku, the California-based company that makes set-top boxes of the same name, has come up with a new solution to this: A wireless stick, not much bigger than a thumb drive, that plugs directly into the back of your TV to stream HD video from the Web — turning your “dumb” TV into a smart one, with minimal gadgetry.

The $100 Roku Streaming Stick, available through Roku.com or Amazon.com, offers the same Web apps and the same powerful processor as Roku’s top-of-the-line set-top box, the Roku XS 2 (also $100). This means that all of that streaming goodness is packed into a small stick.

The Roku Streaming Stick also responds to the same remote used for your TV, as well as to a remote control app for iPhone and Android smartphones — eliminating the need for at least one extra remote.

But there’s one major catch with the Roku Streaming Stick: It only works with a certain type of TV set, one that includes an MHL (Mobile High-Definition Link) port.

While Roku’s CEO Anthony Wood says that the company expects to see more of these TVs on the market within the next year, there are currently around 50 sets and displays sold in the U.S. that are MHL-equipped. And, of those, Roku has certified only a few brands that work really well with the device: Insignia, Apex and Hitachi.

In order to test the stick, I had to shift my regular TV set to the floor and set up a television that Roku delivered to me: A 55-inch, HD Insignia TV that costs $900. Normally, I wouldn’t replace my existing TV with another one just because I wanted to attach a $100 gadget to it, and I’m guessing a lot of consumers would feel the same.

But the plug-and-play stick is convenient. It’s a few inches long and weighs just three ounces. It’s bright purple, and plugs directly into a color-coded MHL port on the backside of MHL TV sets.

It has no wires, and one of the benefits of this technology is that the MHL port actually charges the product while it’s plugged in, so there’s no need to charge the stick at any point. The set-up took all of 10 minutes: I plugged the stick into the TV, authenticated the device and registered with Roku on the Web.

Roku says it has more than 500 apps, which it calls “channels,” on its platform, including popular apps like Netflix, MLB.tv, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, Vudu and Facebook. Both the Roku XS 2 box and the stick come with Angry Birds, which can be played using Roku’s motion-sensor remote.

Over the past week, I’ve watched a lot of shows and movies through the Roku Streaming Stick, mostly through Netflix, Amazon and Vudu (the last two charge per movie rental or download, unlike Netflix’s monthly subscription). I also listened to NPR radio, streamed music through Pandora and logged into Roku’s bare-bones Facebook app, which lets users view photos and videos, but doesn’t allow for status updates.

The media-streaming quality was very good. Occasionally, HD movies would pause to buffer, but never for longer than a few seconds. Only one movie channel I checked out, Sony’s Crackle channel, paused consistently, to play short ads. This was annoying, but then again, the Crackle movies were free.

One app missing from Roku’s offerings is YouTube. I’ve spent more hours than I care to admit using Apple TV to watch YouTube videos with friends. Roku also doesn’t have a Web browser. And this might seem obvious, but you can’t watch media you’ve purchased through iTunes or the Google app store on Roku’s device, either.

Lastly, cable-authentication apps that require a user to have a cable subscrition — like HBOGo or Epix — will only work on Roku with some cable providers. For example, DirectTV and Comcast do not support HBOGo on Roku. Time Warner Cable, however, does.

As with other set-top boxes, text input is clumsy: You use the arrow keys on the remote to select individual letters of the alphabet. But you don’t actually need the Roku Streaming Stick’s own remote unless you want to play Angry Birds or other games that use motion control. The Stick is compatible with the MHL TV’s remote, so I could access and navigate Roku by pressing the “Home” button on the Insignia TV’s remote and using those arrow buttons.

Being able to just press “Home” to get to the Roku stick was joyfully simple compared to the usual process of searching my TV inputs for different devices I’ve connected to it.

Roku also offers new iOS and Android apps that control the Roku Streaming Stick. Much like Apple’s AirPlay feature, I could use the Roku mobile app to stream the many photos stored on my iPhone directly to the TV set, provided that both devices were connected to the same Wi-Fi network.

The Roku Streaming Stick successfully compresses the experience of a Web video box into a tiny, convenient device, but it comes with a lot of “ifs.” Even Roku says that its Stick may eventually be sold as a bundle rather than as a singular gadget. If you prefer Roku’s channel offerings over other set-top boxes, if you have an MHL-compatible television set and if you’re not planning on upgrading to a high-end smart TV with built-in Internet capabilities anytime soon, it’s a great device. Otherwise, right now it’s a niche product.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121022/rokus-new-streaming-stick-for-tvs-lets-you-ditch-the-set-top-box/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20121009/hulu-keeps-jon-stewart-and-stephen-colbert-for-two-more-years-adds-spongebob/ http://allthingsd.com/20121009/hulu-keeps-jon-stewart-and-stephen-colbert-for-two-more-years-adds-spongebob/#comments Tue, 09 Oct 2012 20:27:32 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=258325 Hulu may have big changes ahead of it, but for now the company is proceeding along the same path: Today it announced it has broadened a deal with Viacom, by adding some of the cable giant’s Nickelodeon shows to its Hulu Plus subscription service.

Just as important, the deal extends Hulu’s previous Viacom pact for another two years. That means Hulu and Hulu Plus viewers can keep using the video service to watch Jon Stewart’s and Stephen Colbert’s nightly shows, two of Hulu’s biggest draws.

The new deal will give Hulu Plus access to some of Nickelodeon’s live-action and animated kids’ shows, like “iCarly,” “Big Time Rush,” and “SpongeBob Squarepants.”

But it doesn’t include sister channel Nick Jr.’s shows, which are targeted at younger kids. That means no “Dora the Explorer” or “Fresh Beat Band.” Some of those titles are licensed to Hulu competitors Amazon and Netflix.

Viacom’s kids’ shows have been a subject of scrutiny over the last year, as their ratings have slipped. Some analysts argue that Viacom and Disney have been sacrificing TV eyeballs by putting those shows online.

The big picture for Hulu is that it still has the ability to pay for premium programming that doesn’t come from its three broadcast TV owners — NBC, Disney and Fox* — and that it’s willing to do so. The Viacom stuff is unlikely to come cheap — in 2011, when Viacom and Hulu announced the first deal, I pegged the price at $40 million to $50 million.

Meanwhile, we’re into October, and Hulu CEO Jason Kilar is still running the company. That means my most recent predictions about his departure — the most recent one was that he would be out in September — was wrong. Just like all the others I’ve made.

Plans for Hulu’s network owners to buy out co-investor Providence Equity Partners’ stake, in the works since last spring, have yet to close, which means Kilar and his co-workers haven’t received big checks from the “liquidity event,” either. Once they do, things could change, but I’ll refrain from crystal ball gazing this time around.

*Fox is owned by News Corp., which also owns this Web site.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121009/hulu-keeps-jon-stewart-and-stephen-colbert-for-two-more-years-adds-spongebob/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120918/hulus-shark-tank-problem/ http://allthingsd.com/20120918/hulus-shark-tank-problem/#comments Tue, 18 Sep 2012 10:00:02 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=251382 I think “Shark Tank” is one of the best hours on TV right now. Want to see for yourself? Tune in on Friday nights to ABC, where the reality show/start-up competition is in its fourth season. Mark Cuban makes a particularly excellent hero/villain.

Don’t want to watch TV on Friday nights? Don’t have a DVR? No problem.

A day after the show airs, you can see it on:
Hulu
ABC.com
ABC’s iPad and iPhone app
And, if you get pay TV, your pay-TV service’s video on demand system.

One place you can’t see it:
Hulu Plus. The $8-a-month subscription service offers only some of the show’s episodes from previous seasons.

To beat that into the ground: If you want to watch “Shark Tank” someplace other than ABC, you have several legal options. Hulu Plus, the service that’s supposed to give its customers more TV programming than the free version it hatched out of two years ago, isn’t one of them.

Why not? Good question. An ABC rep says the company doesn’t have the rights to distribute the show on subscription video services. It says it’s up to Sony, which produces the show, to cut a deal with Hulu. But a Sony rep says ABC does have those rights. (Update: ABC now says the show is unavailable because of  a “business-related decision.”)

The net result is the same: Hulu Plus customers who want to watch the show on the service have to find another way, because of murky licensing issues.

It’s hard to get whipped up about this. As noted above, there are plenty of other ways to watch “Shark Tank.”*

The only people who are out of luck are the ones who wanted to watch the show on an Android phone or tablet (ABC doesn’t make an app for that OS), or for people who don’t have cable and want to watch the show on a device like a connected TV or an Apple TV.

I tried to watch the show via Apple TV on Saturday night. When that didn’t work, I ended up watching via Time Warner Cable. No big deal.**

And the good news is that these weird, inexplicable-to-regular-humans licensing gaps seem to happen less often than they used to, because Hulu (owned by Disney, News Corp., and Comcast***) and its programming partners have gotten better at ironing this stuff out. But they still happen. Another example: Hulu Plus customers can’t watch “The Simpsons” on their phones or TVs. Meanwhile, these rights gaps aren’t limited to Hulu.

The digital media utopia will be when media makers no longer care where or when we watch their stuff, because our eyeballs will be just as valuable on any platform. And we’re getting there! But it’s going to take awhile. If the media guys are lucky, we’ll be patient.

* And it really is quite good. If you’re reading this site, decent odds you’ll like it. It’s VC approved!

** Yup. I’ll own it — I spend my Saturday nights at home, watching reality shows.

*** News Corp. also owns this Web site.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120918/hulus-shark-tank-problem/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120828/samsungs-smart-tv-isnt-as-smart-as-it-thinks-it-is/ http://allthingsd.com/20120828/samsungs-smart-tv-isnt-as-smart-as-it-thinks-it-is/#comments Wed, 29 Aug 2012 01:03:32 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://allthingsd.com/?p=245873 More and more people are using their big, flat-panel TVs to watch Internet video, view photos, play music and casual games, and access apps, social media and Web sites. The trouble is, this is primarily being done via plugged-in PCs, or add-on boxes like Apple TV, Microsoft’s Xbox and Roku players. They use separate remotes and are accessed via separate inputs on the TV.

Lots of people have been counting on Apple to unify standard TV with these apps and Internet content in a simple, elegant device. The company is working on it, but the major TV makers aren’t waiting. They are offering Internet-connected “smart TVs.” Their pitch is that you can switch between, or even combine on one screen, regular TV and Internet content, without adding extra devices and remotes, or switching inputs.

I decided to check in on the state of the smart TV by living for a few days with the latest version from Samsung. While competitors like LG, Sony and others also offer smart TVs, I chose Samsung for two reasons. First, it’s a powerhouse across the world of digital devices that run apps. Second, this year it introduced to its smart TVs a new kind of touch-based remote and a concept called Smart Interaction, which uses a camera and microphones built into the TV to support voice control, gesture control and facial recognition.

The Smart Hub with apps

I installed the smallest top-of-the-line Samsung LED model with these new features, the 46-inch ES8000. It costs about $2,000, after rebates.

My verdict is mixed. The Samsung Smart TV worked well for some functions, like watching standard cable TV, conducting Skype conversations with the camera and mics, and watching streaming television and movies via services such as Netflix, Hulu Plus and MLB.TV. I appreciated not having to switch inputs and remotes. I also liked the companion apps for the TV Samsung makes available for Android devices and for the iPhone and iPad, which act as remotes or can beam content onto the TV without an adapter.

But I found the new Smart Interaction — voice, gesture and facial recognition — unreliable and awkward. Many of the key apps, including Facebook, Twitter and the Web browser, seemed crude and hard to use without a keyboard, which Samsung sells for about $100. The Smart Touch Remote was disappointing. I focused my testing on the Smart Interaction, the new remote and the latest version of the Smart Hub, Samsung’s built-in interface for apps and Web content. I wasn’t evaluating the ES8000 as a standard TV, though it handled regular TV just fine.

Setup was easy. The TV easily hooked up to my cable box and linked to my home Wi-Fi quickly and reliably.

Smart Interaction

The Samsung ES8000 allows you to control many functions, like turning the TV on or off or launching apps, by saying “Hi, TV” then speaking a command. You can do this with the TV’s built-in mics, located with the camera in a small module atop the TV, or via a mic built into the Smart Touch Remote. When you say the trigger phrase, a list of possible voice commands appears at the bottom of the screen.

It was disappointing. In many cases, my commands were ignored, interpreted inaccurately, or had to be repeated several times — even in a quiet room and within the recommended distance. I could only get the TV to turn on via voice once in a dozen tries.

Gestures were similarly frustrating. You’re supposed to enable them by just waving your hand toward the camera, but this often failed. When it didn’t, I found using gestures to navigate among apps on the Smart Hub screen to be cumbersome. The exception was “Angry Birds.” It worked well with gestures.

Face recognition — mostly used as an alternate to a password for logging into Samsung’s Internet services — failed for me utterly, even when I left my chair and squatted with my face lined perfectly up to the camera just a few feet away.

Even the guy conducting Samsung’s online tutorials for Smart Interaction (at http://bit.ly/PYs1Dr) suffered some embarrassing failures in a video series called, ironically, “Keep It Simple.”

Smart Touch Remote

The Smart Touch Remote

I had better luck with the Smart Remote, which attempts to get rid of the typical plethora of buttons by using a touch pad. But I found this touch pad to be much less responsive than the best laptop touch pads. I sometimes grabbed for the standard remote that comes with the TV and preferred using Samsung’s Smart Remote app on my iPhone. It was responsive and performed the same functions.

Also, typing in things like passwords, search terms, tweets and Web addresses, was clumsy with either remote, and inconsistent, as it is on many TV-based apps. You have to peck out letters on an on-screen keyboard. The iPhone (and Android) remote app often was better, because it was smoother, and the phone’s keyboard could be used in some cases.

Smart Hub

This screen, separate from the main TV display, contains the ES8000 apps and Internet functions. It isn’t new, but has been improved. It contains some Samsung-based apps, like a family-photo and chat program, a kids’ game and learning app, and a fitness app for exercise videos and charts of results. You also can download third-party apps from a built-in store containing 784 choices, of which about 70 percent are free.

The Smart Hub screen features a small window that shows the TV program you were watching. But if it gets annoying, it can’t be turned off. There also is a feature called Social TV, which wraps a large TV window with a small display of your social network feeds. The feeds aren’t filtered to focus on whatever show you’re watching.

There are Facebook and Twitter apps, but they seemed stripped down. For instance, in Twitter, I wasn’t able to click on a link in a tweet and have it appear in the Web browser. As noted, the best-performing apps were those that mimicked TV, such as Netflix. I also liked a Samsung app called SwipeIt, which lets you take a picture or video from a phone or tablet and with a swiping gesture, make it appear on the TV. It worked perfectly on a Samsung tablet and an iPhone.

There are flashes of a great future merging regular TV and the Web on the Samsung Smart TV. But it needs work.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120828/samsungs-smart-tv-isnt-as-smart-as-it-thinks-it-is/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120731/hulu-apple-finally-get-it-together-hulu-plus-comes-to-apple-tv-lets-you-subscribe-with-itunes/ http://allthingsd.com/20120731/hulu-apple-finally-get-it-together-hulu-plus-comes-to-apple-tv-lets-you-subscribe-with-itunes/#comments Tue, 31 Jul 2012 14:01:43 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=235912 Here’s how to make Apple TV less of a hobby: Add more content.

Like this: Today Hulu Plus subscribers can finally start using the service on Apple’s Web TV peripheral, via a software update Apple pushed out overnight. So if you’re paying the service’s $8-a-month fee, you can now stream TV shows, movies — along with ads — directly to your flat screen.

This brings Apple’s hardware to parity with other devices like the Roku devices and Microsoft’s Xbox 360, so it’s certainly not a game changer. But there are two interesting notes here:

• Like Apple’s deal with Netflix, Hulu Plus is integrated directly into Apple’s iTunes store, which means that if you aren’t a Hulu Plus subscriber, you can sign up using your iTunes account, and Hulu will bill you via Apple. Presumably this means that, just like it does with Netflix, Apple will keep a portion of Hulu’s monthly fee. And from what I can tell, just like Netflix, Hulu won’t let you use iTunes to sign up for the service via a different Apple device, like an iPad or iPhone — if you’re going that route, you’ll still need to visit to Hulu.com
• Hulu and its owner/content partners (Disney, Comcast, and News Corp., which also owns this Web site) had little choice but to get Hulu Plus onto Apple TV. Because with the new Airplay feature in Apple’s new Mountain Lion update, anyone with an Apple TV can already “mirror” the free Hulu Web service onto their TVs. Not being able to offer the paid service — which has features like a deeper content library and HD streaming — would have been quite vexing for Jason Kilar and company.

Big picture for Apple: Tim Cook refuses to say much about TV other than that Apple is interested in it. But these incremental feature adds give you a pretty good sense of where Cook may be going.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120731/hulu-apple-finally-get-it-together-hulu-plus-comes-to-apple-tv-lets-you-subscribe-with-itunes/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120222/comcasts-netflix-killer-isnt-one-yet-but-it-could-be/ http://allthingsd.com/20120222/comcasts-netflix-killer-isnt-one-yet-but-it-could-be/#comments Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:39:25 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=176809 Comcast’s new Netflix killer can’t be a Netflix killer, because most of the people in the U.S. can’t use it. Streampix, the Web video service it is launching this week, will only be available to Comcast’s 22 million cable TV subscribers.

But if Comcast wants to, it can change that overnight, as The Wall Street Journal’s Sam Schechner reported yesterday. The cable giant’s new content deals allow it to sell its stuff nationally, to anyone with an Internet connection, if it wants to.

Comcast insists publicly that it has no interest in doing that. Privately, its executives say the same thing. They say they can’t figure out how to market and support a $5-a-month digital subscription service to noncustomers and still make money.

What if they added more content and sold it for $8 a month, like Netflix does? “That still wouldn’t work for us,” one of them told me yesterday. “We can’t figure out how it works for Netflix, either.”

So if things don’t change, then Streampix will work primarily as an anti-churn tool for Comcast — a carrot they’ll dangle to keep current subscribers happy. And it may also keep a few of them from signing up for Netflix, or renewing the subscription they already have.

Which means it will join the growing number of Netflix killers that aren’t really Netflix killers, because they don’t have the same breadth of content, or are only available to a certain number of customers.

Over the last couple of years, Amazon, Hulu and Dish/Blockbuster have all launched Web video subscription services that offer Netflix-like services. But, so far, none of them have really gone head to head with Reed Hastings.

Later this year, though, Verizon and Redbox will begin selling their own Web video service, and the companies have been very clear that that one won’t be limited to Verizon customers.

And it will definitely feel like a competitive service. There’s a good chance, for instance, that movies from the Viacom-backed Epix pay-TV channel, which currently run on Netflix, will appear on the Verizon service, too.

So that’s one full-fledged (potential) Netflix killer launching this year. And another one that might turn into one, with a flip of the switch. That ought to keep the Netflix executives, and investors, occupied for a bit.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120222/comcasts-netflix-killer-isnt-one-yet-but-it-could-be/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120131/hulus-alien-mushymush-plot-is-back-for-the-super-bowl-with-will-arnett/ http://allthingsd.com/20120131/hulus-alien-mushymush-plot-is-back-for-the-super-bowl-with-will-arnett/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:32:22 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://allthingsd.com/?p=169743 Not long after its CEO, Jason Kilar, left the stage after his talk with Peter Kafka at D: Dive Into Media today, Hulu revealed a teaser for the TV ad that will promote the online video service during Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Here, Hulu returns to the campaign it launched in 2009, which starred Alec Baldwin and involved an alien plan to turn human brains into tasty “mushymush.” You see, your mother was right about TV turning your brains to mush, and Hulu is just the secret weapon to make it happen faster, allowing the aliens to eat more. Get it? And Hulu Plus, its subscription service, is even better.

Naturally Hulu is turning to Twitter, and there’s a hashtag you can use to tweet about what you’re watching to turn your own brain into #mushymush.

The latest installment stars Will Arnett, whom you’ll recognize if you watch shows like “30 Rock,” “Arrested Development” and “Up All Night,” which I don’t, so I, uh, didn’t. Anyhow, enjoy the ad:

Correction: Earlier I said this was the ad, not understanding that the video above is actually a teaser for the real ad that will run on Sunday. Sorry about that.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120131/hulus-alien-mushymush-plot-is-back-for-the-super-bowl-with-will-arnett/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120131/hulus-jason-kilar-we-and-i-are-here-for-the-long-haul/ http://allthingsd.com/20120131/hulus-jason-kilar-we-and-i-are-here-for-the-long-haul/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:28:50 +0000 Liz Gannes http://allthingsd.com/?p=169148 “I think there’s more reason for Hulu to exist now than four and a half years ago,” said Hulu CEO Jason Kilar, who was amiable but guarded in an interview on stage at D: Dive Into Media this morning.

Asked about last year’s failed Hulu sales effort and expectations he would move on, Kilar said he sees “many winners” among Hulu and competitors like YouTube, Netflix, Amazon and Apple. “Online video and online video advertising are enormous,” he said.

Last year’s aborted sales effort, Kilar said, was “far more public than I would have liked. I’m a private guy.” Is he surprised he’s still at Hulu? “I’m not.”

Will he be leaving Hulu any time soon? Kilar urged watchers to look at his history, which includes two employers — Amazon and Hulu — since graduating school. “I’m not the kind of guy who dabbles in a lot of things,” he said. “Just judge me on my history, and the team on the history.”

As for the economics of Hulu, Kilar noted (as he has before) that the company made $420 million last year, which was 60 percent more than 2010, but less than the company had expected after a “soft” third quarter.

Hulu Plus, which Kilar described as being in “investment mode,” pays content owners more per user per month than any of its competitors, Kilar said. “The dollars going back to content owners on Hulu Plus are extremely generous.”

Kilar downplayed content negotiations with News Corp., NBC and Disney, the large media companies who own significant parts of Hulu. “Keep in mind we have 330 content partners, three of which we have an equity relationship with,” he said. (News Corp. also owns this Web site.)

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120131/hulus-jason-kilar-we-and-i-are-here-for-the-long-haul/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120109/is-dish-punching-the-networks-with-its-supersized-dvr/ http://allthingsd.com/20120109/is-dish-punching-the-networks-with-its-supersized-dvr/#comments Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:43:07 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=161807 Yup. It’s a ginormous DVR.

Per earlier reports, Dish Networks’s big rollout at the Consumer Electronics Show today is focused on “The Hopper,” a supersized video recorder that lets users store two terabytes of data. In English, that means about 250 hours of high-def shows, or 1,000 hours of regular shows.

There are a slew of other bells and whistles, and Dish had other stuff to announce, too, like an expanded deal with Time Warner’s HBO to offer more programming to Dish customers who also pay for the premium TV service, more programing for its Blockbuster movie service, and a broadband Internet via satellite option.

Oh, and a kangaroo, which did duty as both mascot and onstage prop.

But if you were looking for an “over the top” service that lets you get pay television over the Web without getting the standard pay TV bundles, this isn’t it. It’s possible that Dish CEO Joe Clayton will offer that one day, but it’s not here now.

The chief focus here is on the DVR, which doesn’t seem like it’s the kind of thing that will attract new customers, but might keep existing ones happier. Nothing wrong with that.

The most interesting wrinkle here is the Hopper feature that will let customers automatically record the primetime lineup of the four broadcast networks — News Corp.’s Fox, Disney’s ABC, Comcast’s NBC and CBS — and store the shows for up to eight days.

Anyone with a DVR is already able to record any show they want, and keep it as long as they have space, so this isn’t an earth-shifter. But it seems clearly designed to poke a bit at other playback options, like the video-on-demand offerings that many broadcasters offer for free, or the Hulu/Hulu Plus service co-owned by Disney, Comcast and News Corp. (News Corp. also owns this Web site).

All of those options, for instance, make you wait at least a day after a program airs before they let you see it. And the networks only offer some of their shows through those options (and CBS doesn’t work with Hulu at all).

My understanding is that Dish didn’t ask the broadcasters for permission on this one, and the way it’s constructed — broadcast-only, with a time limit, etc. — make me think it believes it has created something that doesn’t require a signoff, at least legally speaking. But since all of the big pay TV providers — Dish included — are signing “retrans” deals with the broadcasters and their owners, and those deals include restrictions on how the broadcast shows can be used, it seems like Dish would want to make sure its partners are okay with this.

And they might be! As a network executive pointed out to me this afternoon, this doesn’t have to be negative for the broadcasters. If Dish, for example, can get Nielsen to give the programmers full credit for the shows stored on the Hopper, then that’s a good thing — they’d rather get paid for that eyeball, for instance, than one they sell on the Web.

But it still seems like Dish is playing this one deliberately close to the line.

[Shutterstock/Anna Jurkovska]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120109/is-dish-punching-the-networks-with-its-supersized-dvr/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111116/boxee-sells-live-tv-that-you-already-get-for-free-with-a-big-dose-of-cord-cutting-rhetoric/ http://allthingsd.com/20111116/boxee-sells-live-tv-that-you-already-get-for-free-with-a-big-dose-of-cord-cutting-rhetoric/#comments Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:07:02 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=144763 Boxee has a new $50 gadget that makes it easier to toggle between broadcast TV and Web video options. CEO Avner Ronen has a blog post explaining/selling the doodad, but for me the rollout is a good chance to get Ronen to update us on the state of Boxee, and “over the top”/cable-free video in general. (Also, a good chance to say “dongle.” Always fun.)

Over the past few years, Ronen has flipped back and forth as he positions his company. Initially, he sold Boxee’s software as a way to help nerds watch video without having to pay for cable; then, as he attracted the attention — and ire — of many TV programmers he wanted to work with, he toned that rhetoric down.

Now he’s turned it back up. “This is a cord-cutting device,” he says in person, and the company’s marketing materials drive that home (see the image above).

Ronen claims that 2 million people a month use some combination of his gadget or his software. He says half of them have either cut the cord or never bought one in the first place — that is, they’ve never paid Comcast, Time Warner Cable or anyone else for a video subscription (though they’re almost certainly paying them for broadband).

Pitching yourself as the cord-cutter’s pal is an excellent way to attract attention, but it will make it hard to ever make headway with the big content guys who make a lot of money from cable.

Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that while Boxee announced it had a deal with Hulu a year ago, the video service’s subscription service has yet to appear on Ronen’s box. (Reminder: Hulu is still owned by a joint venture that includes Disney, Comcast and News Corp., which also owns this site.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111116/boxee-sells-live-tv-that-you-already-get-for-free-with-a-big-dose-of-cord-cutting-rhetoric/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111107/the-nook-doesnt-need-the-cloud-the-nook-needs-the-cloud-discuss/ http://allthingsd.com/20111107/the-nook-doesnt-need-the-cloud-the-nook-needs-the-cloud-discuss/#comments Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:49:31 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=141354 If you buy the new Nook Tablet, you won’t have to depend on the Cloud to get all the media you love.

Except when you have to use to the Cloud to get all the media you love.

Confused? Not surprising. Barnes & Noble’s messaging around the Nook, which launched today, is a bit muddled. But let me try to spell it out for you:

Unlike Amazon and its Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble isn’t marketing its tablet with a proprietary cloud service that will get you access to music, movies and TV shows. Instead, the bookseller is leaving that up to other cloud-based services, like Netflix and Pandora.

But make no mistake — these are cloud-based services. Which means you’re almost always going to need an Internet connection to make them work.

And while Barnes & Noble is playing up the fact that its tablet comes with twice the storage capacity of the Kindle Fire, it doesn’t really think you’ll use that storage for music and video.

That is: You can “sideload” media you own onto the Nook from your PC or another device. But the company doesn’t think you will. It thinks you’ll stream your stuff instead.

In order to move movies and TV shows on the gadget, for instance, you wouldn’t be able to use any digital video you bought from Amazon or Apple. Instead you’d have to get your hands on unencrypted MP4 video files, or something similar. And if you know what that means, or how to do it, you’re not the Nook’s target audience.*

And while it’s possible to move music from your iTunes collection onto the machine, B&N doesn’t think you will do that, either.

Here’s a transcript of the brief exchange I had with B&N CEO William Lynch after his press conference, because I wanted to make sure I understood the company’s take:

Peter Kafka: Do you expect regular users to move media from their device to a Nook, or do you think most of them are going to get music and movies via Pandora and Netflix?

William Lynch: Probably more of the latter. Just because they have most of their libraries … I mean, you have a level of sophisticated user that does the former. But as I said, if you look at Netflix, they have 30 million [sic] subscribers..

Kafka: Right. And if I have music on iTunes, can I move it onto the Nook?

Lynch: You can take your MP3 and MP4 players …

Kafka: So I can convert it to an MP3, and move it …

Lynch: And move it, sideload it.

Kafka: OK. So it’s not really a mainstream use. You expect most people to stream music and movies to the device.

Lynch: That’s right.

After this conversation I triple-checked with B&N’s PR reps, who tell me that customers shouldn’t have to convert iTunes files, because most of them will already be in DRM-free AAC format. But the fact that the company’s CEO thinks they won’t want to sideload anyway is the real takeaway.

[UPDATE: Subscription music service Rhapsody, which will work with the Nook Tablet, tells me users will be able to cache some songs for offline play, so the storage capacity could put to use there. I've asked MOG, another Nook-compatible subscription service, if they're doing offering the same thing.]

There’s nothing wrong with that approach, theoretically. But if you’re not going to store movies on the device, then B&N shouldn’t argue that you could watch 5 HD movies on a long airplane flight, on a single charge, since you wouldn’t have any way of actually getting them (good luck streaming HD movies on airplane wireless). And it shouldn’t tell us that we could watch up to nine hours of video on the machine with wireless off, for the same reason.

It’s also a bit odd for B&N to play up its access to Netflix and Pandora, since those are two of the four apps that Amazon all but promised it would have on the Fire. (To be fair to B&N, it is also offering access to Hulu Plus, and Amazon hasn’t said boo about that.) And again — those are cloud-based services, which means they ought to be careful about reminding us that “people aren’t always connected to the Cloud,” which they did repeatedly throughout their press conference.

Product claims aside, the real story behind the mixed messaging seems to be that B&N still fundamentally views the Nook as a reading device which will let you read the stuff it sells. And you will be able to store lots of that stuff on the Nook, which means you won’t need Internet access to get it.

Digital books, magazines, etc., are a $65 billion to $70 billion market, Lynch said during his press conference. And that’s plenty for him for the time being: “We’re not going to launch something where we don’t think we can add material value just to get into the game.”

Reasonable enough. But Jeff Bezos and company are very much in that game. And if Lynch decides he wants to play later, he’ll have to play catch-up.

*B&N’s target audience is a woman with 2.3 kids, Lynch said after the event. So at the risk of perpetuating a stereotype, I’m going to assume that the advice a B&N rep gave me today — to rip a DRM-free MP4 from a DVD, then port it to the tablet — isn’t the one it’s going to bring up very often in its marketing materials.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111107/the-nook-doesnt-need-the-cloud-the-nook-needs-the-cloud-discuss/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111025/verizon-signs-on-for-foxs-web-tv-pullback-plan/ http://allthingsd.com/20111025/verizon-signs-on-for-foxs-web-tv-pullback-plan/#comments Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:31:28 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=136554 Another ally for Fox and its “authentication” strategy. Verizon will be adding its four million FiosTV customers to the Fox plan, which keeps most prime time shows off the Web for eight days except for Hulu Plus customers and certain pay TV subscribers. Also along for the ride, Mediacom, a small regional cable player. Disney’s ABC is expected to adopt a similar strategy. Fox is owned by News Corp., which also owns this Web site.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111025/verizon-signs-on-for-foxs-web-tv-pullback-plan/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111005/hulu-says-subscription-service-revenue-climbing/ http://allthingsd.com/20111005/hulu-says-subscription-service-revenue-climbing/#comments Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:30:58 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=128943 Hulu, the video joint venture which may or may not be sold (a new round of bids hit this week), says that its subscription business is growing at a pace that means it will “account for more than half of Hulu’s overall revenues within the next 12 months.” Unlike previous quarterly blog posts, CEO Jason Kilar didn’t provide more specifics on Hulu’s finances; in the past he has said that the Hulu Plus service had more than one million subscribers, and that the company would generate more than $500 million in revenue by the end of 2011. (News Corp., which owns this site, is a Hulu investor/partner).

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