Can Hulu And Its Broadcast Partners Just Get Along?
Whose ad inventory is it anyway? That's the question at the heart of reported squabbling over who gets to sell what at professional video site Hulu. Accordiing to Mediaweek, the site's so-called network TV "partners" -- ABC, Fox and NBC -- have been pulling back ad inventory from Hulu so they can sell the ads themselves.
While, strictly speaking, that's allowed, it does look kind of funny. After all, it's not just that those three broadcast nets run programming, old and new, on Hulu -- their parent companies actually jointly own it. So, theoretically, isn't Hulu's ad inventory theirs already?
Even if that's somewhat true, it seems like the entities involved in Hulu sometimes act more like adversaries than partners. As it stands now, Hulu sells demographic buckets across the site instead of individual shows, but the networks can sell inventory from individual shows -- and that's what they want to do more of, particularly at NBC. It's unclear how the revenue split works -- if any -- with Hulu when the networks are selling the inventory -- but it stands to reason that, Hulu's cut isn't as good as when it's doing the selling.
But it's not just the inventory issue that's at stake here. It highlights how difficult -- and maybe impossible over the long-term -- it is to run Hulu with so many chefs in the kitchen. This is particularly true because the model for running TV programming online is in its infancy; thus, the usual intramural problems of a joint venture are exacerbated by its newness. No one really knows how its business model will work out, or if it will eventually harm the cash cow that is network TV.
As another example, a year ago at this time, Fox was the only one of the three TV partners which openly talked about the need for Hulu to build a subscription model. The good thing -- for the site's future -- is that the subscription model, Hulu Plus, is coming to pass. Still, as the ad inventory squabble illustrates, there's still plenty of room for disagreement, all over Hulu.
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