from our friend Michael Learnmonth at Advertising Age:
From that base of content, Hulu.com has become the fourth-biggest online video distributor by unique visitors in January, behind YouTube, Yahoo and MySpace, according to the latest from Nielsen VideoCensus. In total video streams, it’s No. 3, with 232 million, behind YouTube (5.8 billion) and Yahoo (277 million).
But the exclusive part of that NBC-News Corp. deal lasts only two years, and Hulu knows all too well that the scarcity that helped it establish an audience (and brand) is going away soon. Hulu has never said exactly when the deal expires, but it’s likely within a year after the first anniversary of Hulu’s public launch, in March.
[...]
Hulu has a huge head start — and even has a Super Bowl ad under its belt — but it’s about to get a lot more competition from portals such as Yahoo TV, which was the fastest-growing video site in January, but also from TV-centric sites such as, well, TV.com, which CBS acquired in the CNet deal last summer.
Since its relaunch last month, TV.com is growing fast. It’s the bigger site in terms of unique visitors, with 5.9 million compared with Hulu’s 4.5 million, according to Nielsen. And TV.com’s revamp has reversed a downward traffic trend, according to Compete. Read the rest on adage.com
Update: Semi-related? Did Hulu just pull the plug on its deal with TV.Com?
I know I just wrote this, which sort of of waves a dismissive hand at the revenue value of television viewing of shows via the Internet, but that was at the level of individual show episodes, which usually doesn’t scale well. But if you look at iTunes, Hulu, etc. as large networks for distributing a multitude of content, in the aggregate there is already quite a bit of scale, and potential for much more.
Robert, I don’t think what you wrote earlier is in conflict with this at all. Hulu.com, iTunes (for TV) and others can still be real businesses while being small compared to existing advertising revenues for television shows.
TV.com is a joke. RIP Tvtome.
i hate tv.com but i also hate Hulu because i can’t use it: apart from a few videos. No Hulu.uk!
Is this that big of a deal? Hulu doesn’t have all the content.
Yeah, TVTome was far superior to TV.com. TV.com has horrible load times and I do anything to avoid going there.
tv.com works fine for me. you can find many information about your favorite shows beside the official site. I check it just for the info, not the videos.
4.5 million unique viewers; 232 million streams. Is it safe to assume that new episodes of top shows on Hulu(like The Office and House) pull in over a million unique viewers? Almost all of them 18-49? That would be significant revenue.
So wheres Dollhouse? and TSCC? and Chuck? This week: dollhouse has the 7th most popular episode with ghost, and chuck doesn’t show up til 89th spot.(the 3D episoe, with the new episode taking up the 90th slot) TSCC? The 29th most popular episode for the week.
Only dollhouse can make a claim(and not that great of one) that it is pulling in a significant number of viewers through legal internet viewing(including iTunes) to even consider pushing it’s renewal chances upwards. TSCC and Chuck fans, you can’t even hope the internet saves you.
Dave, no, it’s not safe to make those assumptions. many of those streams are merely clips. there’s no way with those numbers that new episodes of shows are averaging a million views. which isn’t to say no shows are, but that’s over a course of a month and even then really wouldn’t be significant in terms of revenue/
As for Dollhouse, it may be saved, but it will not be saved due to the Internet viewing.
I just think if the shows on the bubble, in a situation where neither canceling nor renewing it is a bad decision(which looks like it could be the case), Dollhouse’s internet popularity/and subsequent DVD popularity(if I know Whedon fans) could help. For Chuck and TSCC, they’re not even popular on the internet.
But you’re right, compared to TV revenue, it is insignificant, but it’s got to be a positive.
tv.com is a badly set up site, I didn’t even know they had streaming videos to compete with Hulu (actually I think they inbed Hulu vids on there site). People are idiots, Hulu is a billion times better than Tv.com
Lourdes: Do you work for CBS or you just like crappy sites?
The reason Tvtome was a great site is the same reason this site rocks. It was operated by people who liked TV and wanted other people to like it as much as they do.
I love it – all these sites competing for my eyeballs – I love Hulu – but either way all I really care about is that I find the ads unobtrusive and now I can cancel netflix and certainly don’t regret not paying that huge cable bill!
Also love that Hulu has a convenient widget player for use at work or just to keep tabs on content from my google homepage: http://gingagadgets.com/hulu
I wrote for TV Tome(stone) for 5 years. The only bad things about it were the bratty children who littered the forums and the douchenozzle owner. Well, and the fact that I didn’t get paid. When CNET bought it and basically threw the whole thing in the trash, I assumed they were in some kind of contest with some other company to see who could create a website so flash-infested, it would make the thing virtually unbrowsable. If that’s the case, I have no doubt in my mind that CNET won. After TV.com crashed my old computer one too many times, I just gave up. What once existed as a site to host episode guides turned into a place to sell Viagra and Ephedrin.
If they’re trying to compete with Hulu, oh please. Hulu has stuck with its original purpose. If TV.com were any more now like its original purpose, it would be MTV.
Riff Rafferty: I used to read Buffy episodes recaps all the time (where I’m from it took years to catch up). I’m remembering now that you used to have Nielsen ratings for some shows. Because of TV Tome I found out what households mean.