Yet for people who care about TV programming, Hulu represents more than just another way to catch favorite episodes.
The issue boils down to this: Will low-cost original programming, a la "lonelygirl15" or those grainy, amateur YouTube clips, continue to dominate online video? Or will the little guys get crowded out in a new, heavily commercialized era, led by expensive, slickly produced studio shows that premiered on broadcast or cable?
A lot of money -- and maybe the future of TV programming itself -- is riding on the answer. After all, studios almost certainly face more years of viewer erosion on the traditional networks. Their economics might cease to work at all unless they find other ways to recapture those lost viewers. Given how much time people spend with their computers and wireless devices, the Web is going to be a key battleground.
One of Hulu's chief rivals, Veoh, has hedged its bets, programming-wise. Veoh's service is divided between user-generated content (see surveillance-cam footage of an office worker going berserk in a crowded cubicle!) and professionally produced stuff such as "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "The Big Bang Theory."
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DMITRY SHAPIRO, the founder of Veoh, says the Web has always prized openness. That's partly why YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia, all of which allow users to post their own content, have done so well. And that's the model Shapiro is determined to follow.
"That's how the Internet was built; everyone participates," Shapiro said in an interview. "That is really the complete opposite of what Hulu is based on," he added, because Hulu doesn't allow users to post their own video. "Closed systems don't work on the Internet." (When I raised the example of Apple's iTunes music and video store as a type of closed system that's done quite well, Shapiro dismissed it as "an anomaly.")
The importance attached to original made-for-the-Web content has been proven, Shapiro argued, by the herd of major Hollywood players who have moved into that arena, including former Walt Disney Co. chief Michael Eisner, ex-Nickelodeon chief Herb Scannell and former WB Network boss Jordan Levin.
