Nearly a year ago a PR guy for Playstation told me about a website called Hulu during a basement party in the East Burn Bar. His cocktail promise was that it was going to be "bigger than Youtube…because it was legal video that was free and only had short commercials." Shortly there after, he got into a fight with the bartender and kicked out. At the time I figured it wasn't possible to be bigger than Youtube, after all its one of only two things more searched on Google than "porn" (according to Google trends- the other being Facebook).
I was dumbfounded when I ran across a prime time T.V. commercial promoting the website. Youtube doesn't have commercials! Hell, I hadn't seen a legitimate website commercial since the tech bubble popped (Cash for Gold and Go Daddy don't count). I was especially interested in the sites tagline- "An evil plot to take over the world".
Late last month the "evil plot to take over the world" started to look like less of a tagline and more of a mission statement. On April 30th, a press release from Hulu announced that Disney was joining NBC Universal, Newscorp and Providence Equity Partners as "Equality Owners of Hulu".
Essentially, Hulu is becoming the combined mega company of three of the six biggest media corporations in the world. NBC Universal is part of General Electric which rakes in approximately 183 Billion Dollars annually. Newscorp is chipping in to the Hulu pot with some of its annual approximate 33 Billion dollars and now Disney with its 37.8 Billion. Combined the three companies make about 253 billion dollars off of their communication assets, Hulu being one of the larger collaborations. The other three companies not involved in Hulu only make around 58 billion annually.
Collaborations like this are becoming all too frequent and represent the shrinking diversity of media outlets. In a way, Hulu is the young star of the television industry. It marks televisions adaptation to the internet, something radio still hasn’t figured out. However, it is also the biggest filter to entertainment and informational freedom. So it hasn't "taken over the world" yet, but it is well on its way. That day will come when Hulu starts airing real "news" and not just Weekend Update.
