Reports out of the Broadcasting & Cable “OnScreen summit” yesterday quoted News Corp deputy chairman Chase Carey saying Hulu could begin charging for services as early as 2010.
People don’t need to get too worked up about this if they read all his comments. The big problem Hulu has is it can’t charge for stuff that ABC, NBC and FOX online properties are giving away. If that happens, they might as well fold up shop because people will just go directly to the networks web sites and watch for free.
But Carey seems to understand this according to Broadcasting & Cable’s Claire Atkinson:
Carey says that while throwing up a pay-wall around all content is not the answer, it doesn’t mean there wont be fees for some specially-created content and TV previews. Windows are just around the corner. American Idol audition previews anyone? Mobile Hulu is another potential way of making money.
Here’s who needs to be worried: people who don’t subscribe to cable and are watching stuff on Hulu like my new favorite show, FX’s Sons of Anarchy. Currently there are a few free episodes available on Hulu (and on FXnetworks.com) though new episodes lag by ~8 days from original air date. I’d look for those kinds of shows to go behind a pay wall, on FXnetworks AND on Hulu. Why? Because FX makes its money from a combination of advertising and carriage fees. Giving the content away to people who are already subscribers isn’t really a problem, but giving it away to people who aren’t is.
Much of the “TV Everywhere” notion that cable is touting these days has to do with giving paying subscribers access to content they are already paying for online. But they’ll need to figure out how to validate those customers, and in cases like Hulu’s they’ll need to figure out how to charge the people who aren’t paying.
I understand that will irk some of the people who weren’t already paying for access to the content. But sorry, screw you if you think you’re entitled to have for free what others have to pay for. Why should we paying customers subsidize your free access? We shouldn’t!
The bigger short term challenge for online video though is this: they need to figure out how to start inserting more commercial spots in the online content.
I know a lot of people who literally LIVE on Hulu to catch up with their favourite shows
(being in Canada, we can’t access it anyways)
But I’ve never really understood the “appeal” of Hulu over torrenting your favourite shows – especially for newer programming that has aired over the past few weeks. Why do people choose Hulu over downloading (HD quality) programs from torrents?
(apart from the legal/moral consequences)
because there are far few barriers to the content (particularly 1-4 below):
1.) don’t have to know about torrents or have downloaded torrent software
2.) don’t have to look for and find torrents
3.) don’t have to wait for torrents to download
4.) don’t have to wait to watch the program
5.) don’t have to worry about downloading the proper codecs
6.) don’t have to worry about downloading crap masquerading as the content you thought you were downloading
Well that’s quite the comprehensive list LOL
1,2,4,5 are more of a “one time” kind of thing, but 3 is definitely the big factor (I’m assuming) which makes Hulu > Torrents
for the masses, anything that is a barrier, is a barrier! A “one time only” barrier is still quite a huge barrier. We still live in a world where most people do not ever change the default settings of their operating systems and software applications.
Also, #4 is not a one time thing, it’s an every time thing.
Robert said:
“I understand that will irk some of the people who weren’t already paying for access to the content. But sorry, screw you if you think you’re entitled to have for free what others have to pay for. Why should we paying customers subsidize your free access? We shouldn’t!”
I totally agree with this comment. I get so irritated with people who whine and cry that a cable show like “Sons of Anarchy” or “Damages” isn’t available the next day online for free. You know these people are either to cheap or maybe they can’t afford cable, which I can understand with the economy. But so what, nothing in this world is for free and cable companies do have some pretty good package deals right now to choose from.
I sih HULU worked in the UK…
Hulu’s big assest is convience and selection, but mostly convience. Drop the convience and charge for it, and there goes 90% of your user base, if not more.
As someone who knows how torrents works, and has the ability to do so, and chooses Hulu over it (for more than just moral reasons), my number one reason is hard drive space. Why do I want to clutter my hard drive with shows I can stream?
Eh. I go back and forth between Hulu and torrents for the NBC Thursday night comedies — there’s too much on to Tivo it all.
Arguments for torrents: there are a huge number of seeds for these shows, so there’s close to no wait to download them, and once you have them, you can stream them pretty easily to your TV. (TVersity on the computer, Xbox connected to the TV, etc.) The fact there’s no commercials this way is a plus for a lot of people, though I find the Hulu ads are pretty non-intrusive.
Arguments for Hulu: comes with closed captions, which is nice when you have noisy kids in the room. Is a little more instant, but not really enough to make it a deciding factor for me.
always have another way to get content
fancast for instance
with it being so easy you would think they would have an interest to keep it free
for instance offering extras-episodes and scenes you wouldnt catch on regular TV for the same shows
People who want to watch for free use the network sites and such. People who want to pay use iTunes. What would be the point in Hulu going paid?
shelly, if you read the article, you’d see that shows that are free on network sites will continue to be free on Hulu. Cable programs will be what costs money, and they will either be taken down from the network sites, or cost money there as well.
An easy way around the perceived “inconvenience” of paying for Hulu could be for cable providers who are already offering cable and internet to include a Hulu subscription option as part of your package. This also solves the “validation” problem, since it lets Hulu know that you are already a paying customer.
Hulu “just works”. You need a standards compliant web browser and a Flash plug-in. My “living room media box” that’s hooked up to the PC is running Ubuntu GNU/Linux and Hulu works fine, full screen, on that system. BitTorrent is a can of worms and there’s always the risk of the MPAA sending you a letter demanding $3,000.
I use BitTorrent for downloading Ubuntu releases. Unauthorized copyrighted media rips downloaded over the Internet? Not for now.
Adam, I agree with you though you can count on the people who are NOT already subscribing bitching the loudest about this.
Hey, now. I’m not subscribed and I recall writing something a month or so ago about how YouTube should start charging for Lions Gate TV properties!
Julia, I’m not lumping you in with the unreasonably entitled crowd! But there *is* an unreasonably entitled crowd, even if you are not among them!
Surely if iTunes and Amazon UnBox offers paid for downloads then surely Hulu could do it? I agree that cable shows should be pay only especially for HBO, Showtime and Starz shows. I think a Spotify system could work where you have free streaming for most shows but with ads or a Premium choice where you get exclusive content plus no ads for a small sum per month.
I think this is actually a bigger deal than you’re giving it credit for.
What’s the richest potential source of revenue for broadcast networks over the next ten years? Retrans fees, by an enormous margin.
How do you think cable operators will feel about paying for broadcast network programming that’s available for free online? My guess is that may have a slight problem with it!
Are the networks likely to protect the pittance they make from online video while risking the potentially gigantic haul from retrans? Not likely at all.
Add it up. Broadcast programming will be treated just like cable programming online as a condition of retrans deals.
The writing is on the wall. In five years Hulu will be a pay site accessible only by subscription or by password to paying cable customers – if it exists at all.
Mikey, 5 years is too far out of my time horizon and I wonder if it won’t take a bit longer.
I definitely see it as an issue though, but it will mean ABC.com, FOX.com, etc. will also have to scrap free content. That to me is a bigger story than “No Free Hulu”, but I don’t see it happening in 2010 (or 2011 or 2012) so there will be plenty of time to talk about it!
Edit: though I agree that “There will be no free current TV content in 2015″ is a much more interesting story…if it plays out like that
if it exists at all.
It’s far more likely to go under than to become pay only.
Why would cable operators want to pay retrans fees for something subscribers can get free over-the-air, and in HD, too? Broadcast shows are free. Retrans fees won’t change that.
“Why would cable operators want to pay retrans fees for something subscribers can get free over-the-air, and in HD, too?”
Because they’re competing with satellite services that will have this programming.
If you’re in the business of selling a package of television programming you can’t compete effectively without the most popular shows.
Look at Cablevision. They just agreed to pay CBS 50 cents per home per month for their signals in NY and Philly. Obviously they recognize the value even if they are writing that check with gritted teeth.
Robert, I think this will all play out much more quickly than that, but who knows? You may well be right. I suspect that at least one major broadcaster – if not all four – will stop offering free programming online within two years.
Sounds like when Napster turned into a pay site. That worked out real well too, huh?
Soon a new free hulu type site will replace it. Not smart of hulu
Charge a minimal fee (a dollar or two a month) that people won’t mind paying. They aren’t getting anything now so go that route. And why not just have ads, ones short enough that it is not worthwhile to leave the room or stop the computer. Upsetting people who want to view your content is a weird way to handle this.
What I don’t get about all of this is the advertising factor. Get a person hooked on a show and maybe they will watch on their TV or buy the box set or if possible subscribe to cable. Make it more difficult to watch and maybe you have lost a potential viewer.
I think it will be a hard genie to stuff back in the bottle. But I’m assuming that the issues around light commercial load are solvable. If “convenience” is the major benefit of online access, why not have as many commercials as are on TV or even a few more?
CBS got the $.50 cents even with much of its content being available online. I agree if it’s either/or and they can’t make anywhere near $.50/sub online, they’ll do what it takes to protect the $.50. If CBS stopped providing online services would the fee been much/any different than what they got?
Mikey, I understand that. That’s my point. Cable and satellite companies will pay retrans fees to broadcast networks even if the content is available for free online, because otherwise, they won’t be able to compete if broadcast is pulled.
Hulu is really just a hub for FOX, NBC and ABC’s shows. Robert made some good points in his original post and I don’t anyone should freak out about this.
I do agree about the cable shows possibly being in the realm of pay subscription content along with older shows not currently being broadcasted.
I don’t really understand how major network programs are considered “free” on Hulu. Every show that I’ve ever watched on there has had commercial breaks, so Hulu is making some money from advertising. Granted, there typically is only one commercial on Hulu versus several ads during a t.v. commercial break. Don’t the networks who provide content get a cut of the ad revenue? If making money is the issue, why not just add more commercials to put it on par with standard t.v. viewing (yet, still allowing the convenience of watching a show whenever/wherever you want to). As far as pay channels like HBO, Showtime, and the like, I can understand charging a fee for those. Perhaps, I’m not really understanding the rationale behind the proposed fees.
As I see it HULU is one way to compete with DVR; so any income from shows is better then no income. They would be foolish to get greedy, imo.
George, they’re considered “free” when YOU don’t have to pay anything extra for them. The financial details are fuzzy, but since the parent companies of ABC, NBC and FOX own Hulu, they definitely get a cut of the revenue. But due to less viewing and far fewer ads, its peanuts compared to what they can make on TV.
Also, as noted by Mikey the broadcast networks (NBC, FOX, ABC, CBS, etc) are looking to get more in “retransmission fees” from cable and satellite companies for their content. This winds up meaning a monthly payment across all subscribers and there is a school of thought that if the content — even over the air broadcast network content — is free on the Internet, it will be harder for the broadcast networks to capture the retransmission fees.
Those retrans fees would be quite lucrative compared to the small revenue currently generated online.
I’d gladly pay Hulu if that means that there are no more ads during my shows. I use Hulu like crazy right now. There are only a few things I watch live on TV anymore. That’s football, local news, Community, The Office, Chuck, and 24. Okay, I guess that’s a lot but still. Hulu is awesome and they’re one of the few sites I would give my money to.
tvshack, megavideo, all the chinese video sites … there’s no need to use torrents anymore if you want free TV and movies. And with the megauploads and rapidshares of the world … there’s no nagging fear of getting caught since you aren’t uploading anything.
I often have had to use port forwarding to get torrents to work with my cable equipment .. that would stymie 95-99% of people right there.
I think the one-click hosting sites (megaupload, sendshare, rapidshare, etc), in combination with the aggregators (tvshack, surfthechannel, etc) is a pretty huge threat.
And the cheap little media players like WDTV are getting very slick. Now I can watch the shows on my nice TV.
All I really need from cable is live sports and news. ESPN and FoxNews. TBS, VS and TNT often have live sports, too. Everything else is online somewhere.
And going forward hard disk size is getting so huge. For a scifi geek like me it’s getting to the point where a small portable hard drive can have every episode of every scifi show I like.
In the past my friends and I would share DVDs of shows. I lent my Firefly DVDs to one friend, he lent me BSG, SG-1 to another. Now I could just let him copy a single hard drive.
In a few years we’ll have portable 5-10 TB drives. Those could hold tens of thousands of episodes. A 2 TB drive today can hold almost 3,000 movies at DVD quality or 6,000 hour long tv shows.
What does the media landscape of 2015-2020 look like when I can hand you a $100 portable drive that holds every scifi movie and tv show ever made?
I just Bit Torrent everything. Given that I’ve never seen a nielson box, or even met someone who has had one, it affects nothing. Plus all the commercials are removed for me. Sometimes the lag can get to ~12hrs, but normally I get stuff pretty close to the west coast broadcast.
I don’t mind paying something more than what I am now (ie nothing) for getting more than what I am now…
If HULU starts to charge, give me the ability to download, let me put the shows onto a portable device. Even if they’re temporary.
While the genie may not be able to be put back into the bottle, I don’t think it’s fair to assume that the sense of entitlement about “this should all be free” really has any logical basis anyway. Sure, it was nice that it’s been free all along, and I think the networks are to blame for getting themselves in this position, but to give away something of value and then AFTER the fact complain about losing that value should not come as a surprise to either side.
1.) don’t have to know about torrents or have downloaded torrent software
2.) don’t have to look for and find torrents
3.) don’t have to wait for torrents to download
4.) don’t have to wait to watch the program
5.) don’t have to worry about downloading the proper codecs
6.) don’t have to worry about downloading crap masquerading as the content you thought you were downloading
Isnt 3 and 4 the same thing?
oh and
7.) Don’t have to worry about having enough space on your harddrive
8.) Don’t have to worry about downloading a virus/malware(I guess this one might be covered under 6)
I used to watch torrents all the time. Just queue a bunch up and watch them the next morning. But now I watch Hulu and other sites like megavideo and the like.
One advantage torrents have over Hulu is a lot of the new content on Hulu is on a 8 day waiting period. Torrents are available within 24 hours … most of the time 3 or 4 hours after a show has aired.
Hulu is just convenient… its easy to hop on the site and watch a show. But if they started a pay program I wouldnt go back … its only slightly more inconvenient to watch the same programing on other sites and much sooner than Hulu can provide the same content.
Never really used Hulu because the video quality sucked. I would much rather take the time to download it from a torrent site and get a good quality HDTV copy.
I don’t waste my time with hulu or any other streaming content, bit torrent is the only way to go for me. I get tv shows that I can’t dvr an hour after they broadcast, takes 10 min to download and 30 sec to put into a USB. Insert USB into my surround sound DVD player and enjoy on my 50 inch samsung. In this digitally obsessed world we live in, torrents are not rocket science.
I’m totally willing to pay for content. Unfortunately, those stupid geographic location restrictions prevent me from accessing most legal streaming sites or downloading from Amazon Unbox or iTunes. Some Canadian networks stream TV shows and there’s iTunes in Canada, but the amount of US and UK shows available this way is limited.
I tried BitTorrent but found it too slow. So I taught myself how to download from Usenet and now I pay to a Usenet provider what I would gladly pay to content owners if I had the choice.
I have a fiber optic connection at home, so regular TV shows download in 60-90 seconds and HD shows download in 3-5 minutes.
Gleebo, what on earth are you talking about? Standard quality on Hulu is great, and they even offer certain shows in HD.
Cable rates are artificially high because of lack of competition. If there was more competition and an a la carte system of getting channels in which you could just pick the half dozen you are interested in and not have to pay for the dozens or more that you don’t want I might have some sympathy for the cable companies and their concerns about people expecting things for free online without paying.
But because the cable companies are remorselessly greedy and controlling, I give the “entitlement” people who want it free online a free pass ethically.
Is what I’m hearing right? That some people think even broadcast shows are expected to be pay online, but free over the airwaves, just because cable has to pay retransmission fees?
When this was originally about cable shows I think there was a point, but now that it’s descended to cable deserves to be protected because it has to pay retrans fees for something broadcasters give for free over the air, then I think the argument loses a lot of its bite.
Anyway, internet isn’t free. I have to pay $60 a month for it, to a satellite tv provider no less.
Regarding all the Canadians and other out-of-towners, Hulu is “exploring international expansion.”
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/140/the-unlikely-mogul.html?page=0%2C5
The whole article at FastCompany is worth reading. Tells the story of Hulu’s founding.
If Hulu were to charge for programming then, like the article stated, they’re dead. Now, Hulu would be stupid I feel to NOT have something in the realm of “Premium” original content (such as behind the scenes, etc.). A relatively small monthly fee could be charged and they would probably sign up a respectable amount of people.
I could also see part of this “Premium” package consisting of better video quality as well.
To you guys who are touting the virtues of bit torrent….congratulations, you are more savvy than 98% of the TV viewing population.
And I’m not trying to be snarky. Just saying that the vast majority of TV viewers don’t have the know-how, patience, or motivation to download shows for free.
Comparing TV to the music business is flawed. The online music audience is/was dramatically younger and more tech-smart than the general TV viewing population, and the scale of the two businesses are very different. If 100,000 people pirate a record that’s devastating to an artist’s revenue. If 100,000 pirate a network TV show, well, it’s annoying but it’s not even a rounding error in the total viewership.
What would happen to shows on Hulu that are no longer on the air?
Hulu’s subscription option will likely allow customers to view episodes of the current season that are no longer available to the general public. It may also extend viewing options to past seasons, to shows that are no longer on air or to movies.
If it pursues this model, Hulu’s subscription service would most likely compete with Netflix. I don’t expect Hulu to take the route of selling downloadable videos to own, alla iTunes.
Eh, I don’t really care about Hulu… I don’t watch any of the shows on there… Most of what I watch is on CBS, and it’s already online, except for the stuff on CBS owned by Warner Bros and ABC.. i Guess they dont like their stuff being anywhere online, even to buy.
A big threat is to the back catalog.
Look at movies. A scifi fan will easily be able to download and have on his $100 home media server all of the important scifi movies ever made. An action movie buff will be able to do the same. Same with musicals, horror movies, thrillers, crime, etc, etc.
Older people are too busy/not tech savvy, sure. But teens and 20-somethings will easily do it. And all they need to do is hand their mom and dad a $100 media server with all the movies.
Or the TV back catalog. Right now you flip through channels and, hey, you stumble on Seinfeld or NCIS or Friends or MASH. You could easily have every episode of those shows on your home media server.
I think movies are at bigger risk since they have higher repeat view value, so are worth collecting. TV shows less so except for fans or genre fans.
“I totally agree with this comment. I get so irritated with people who whine and cry that a cable show like “Sons of Anarchy” or “Damages” isn’t available the next day online for free. You know these people are either to cheap or maybe they can’t afford cable, which I can understand with the economy. But so what, nothing in this world is for free and cable companies do have some pretty good package deals right now to choose from.”
Look at it this way, for a lot people, cable is a rip off.
It’s ridiculous to pay $100+ a month if you watch maybe one network. Or even just one show on one network. But you can’t get a la cart programming. All you can get is a bundle with a bunch of stuff you don’t need.
Hulu is great for this because you can pick and choose what you watch and when.
So if it is a choice between paying for a bunch of stuff you don’t want or need, or watching it online it’s pretty much a no brainer. If Hulu is no longer an option even with ads then people will either Torrent or you could always buy it off of iTunes.
Regardless I think they are going to have a really hard time trying to sell people low quality streaming video. Hulu is great for it’s convenience and price(free), once those two things go away, why bother?
I know its a pay service, but for 22 bucks a month for 500gigs per month at with download speeds reaching 10mb/s. But Graboid at graboid.com is fricken amazing.
The reason I choose torrents over Hulu is because I can watch torrents on my TV. I definitely prefer to watch shows on my big screen and not on my tiny computer screen. Until they come up with a way to get Hulu on my television, I find the entire service pretty useless.
Bobby that still adds up to this when you look at the data: overwhelmingly most teens and 20somethings watch their TV on TV. They don’t watch online video streams nearly as much as they watch TV and they don’t download torrents nearly as much as they watch video streams.
The other thing is News Corp is all about charging for their online content whether in print, film or TV but HULU is not owned by just NewsCorp and I have a hard time believing NBCU and Disney will go for charging for everything or even most things on HULU (I’m sure Rupert Murdoch would, the guy probably wants to charge for Myspace but someone told him nobody uses it anymore). As for cable shows being charged for I think it would hurt their view amounts but it’s likely that will happen. It only makes sense. People who want to find it free still will though and so I think it will only hurt HULU and it’s numbers.
Quality is another big issue as Temporal pointed out. If they try top sell it as is they will find it even harder. I think they will have to offer some kind of true HD content to start charging and be remotely successful at it.
AC, hurting Hulu’s numbers only matters if Hulu is making money; it isn’t yet, and with the current ad loads, I question whether it can.
I agree Robert. They don’t seem to really have a business model in place to make any money. I just don’t know if charging for cable content would help too much either. I’m sure it will bring in a little but just not enough to matter. I think you are right about fitting in more ads. We shall see I just wonder if HULU can last in the long term. Too many big name companies trying to get along.
Been using torrents to download TV shows since 2005 and have never had any trouble. Download speeds are now faster than ever and getting started is actually a peice of cake. No commercials, great quality, tide you over until the DVDs are released (or if you simply don’t have the cash to buy them).
I’d say that torrents are more convenient than Hulu or other streaming sites. You don’t have to be that computer savy either, that’s just a myth.
Why does everyone use torrents? I can download an episode in 10 minutes without finding a private tracker within minutes of the episode ending on the east coast.
yeah as long as network shows are free, I don’t give a crap.
“If that happens, they might as well fold up shop because people will just go directly to the networks web sites and watch for free.”
Or if the network web sites stop giving it away for free, people will just go to pirate sites.
Which is why Hulu can’t have to many commercials: to many and people turn to pirating.
I may have no qualms about pirating content but most people do. Torrents are an issue for the entertainment buisness, but just because some people will steal content doesn’t mean the industry should stop trying to charge for it. There are enough honest people out there to make it work. Charging for Hulu to non-cable subscribers can only make Hulu more money. It won’t drive anyone to torrents in large enough numbers, who wasn’t using torrents already. Like Robert said, If Hulu really wants to make money they need to run at least a minute of ads per commercial break. Not 15 or 30 second breaks.
Heradite, that must explain why nobody watches NCIS on TV. Too many commercials.
I’m only talking about people who watch TV on the internet-not for those who watch a program live.
Personally, I would pay Hulu like a monthly fee for no commercials.
By the way, worth mentioning: if Thursday wasn’t the most ridiculously overscheduled night of television in history, I wouldn’t need to torrent (or Hulu) anything. Thanks for putting FlashForward, Bones, and Parks & Recreation all on at the same time, as well as Grey’s, Fringe, and Office/30 Rock. Really brilliant scheduling, guys. If Fox, ABC, or NBC would swap their Tuesday and Thursday schedules, I’d just be able to DVR it all, which would definitely be my preference.
I love how many think that all the networks came together and came up with the schedule. But this is a competition: ABC, CBS, FOX, CW, and NBC are putting their best on Thursdays because their trying to WIN the night because they are COMPETING. Really, the programs you DVR or watch live are the ones you obviously like the best: so that network won the fight with you.
Of course Thursday is ridiculous. Winning that night is just plain HUGE.
Robert, you make good points. Most American households are used to paying their $50-$60+ a month to the cable or satellite company. To most adults that’s just an accepted cost of modern American life. And most American are happy with the service. Now even though most of the shows I watch I watch online, I still subscribe to cable to get ESPN and Fox. And I still enjoy couch surfing when I’m tired and unmotivated. I recognize I’m in the minority – young, tech-savvy, male.
So I don’t think the TV world will fall off a cliff like the music industry did. I do think there will be a transition.
For example. the premium channels offer no value to me. I subscribe to the most basic cable package that gets me espn and fnc. I do think there are increasing #s of people like me. And if, for example, I could easily stream live sports and news, then I probably would cut my cable entirely. (There are ways, but I don’t want to be uploading anything and expose myself).
So I see a steady stream of 20 and 30-somethings foregoing paying for those premium cable packages — depressing cable, and thus tv, revenue. I also see this eating into DVD sales.
I’m still curious what you think the impact of the one-click hosting sites (megaupload, sendshare, rapidshare, etc) will be. They have almost completely replaced my torrent usage.
I don’t know about that: the programs I’m not watching live or on DVR Thursdays actually ARE my favorites, but they’re also 22 minutes long, not 44, and a heck of a lot easier to watch (and follow) on my crappy laptop screen than Fringe or FlashForward would be.
I understand the point of the networks competing on Thursdays. I’m obliquely making another point, which is that they’ve overdone it to such an extreme that they’re pushing their viewers into getting comfortable with watching online instead, which is not a good thing for either them or their affiliates in the long run.
No ones going to pay a dime for anything on the net to watch!
chuck
they will probably go through our internet provider like ESPN360
A person who doesn’t have cable but watches Sons of Anarchy on hulu is not likely to start paying $50 to watch Sons of Anarchy on cable if they take it away from hulu.
Being deaf I like the fact that Hulu tends to caption at least the last 2-4 episodes of a series. I DVR everything I watch, but sometimes the captions are messed up on my TV and difficult to read. They have been particularly difficult to read with shows on FOX this season so I’ve been watching House, Lie to Me, and Fringe on Hulu a lot lately… For some reason the captions have been fine on Dollhouse but not the other shows I watch on FOX. Go figure.
I wish Netflix captioned stuff. I’d love to be able to use Netflix’s Instant Viewing services especially considering I’m an Xbox 360 owner. Deaf subscribers to Netflix are getting screwed in that area. We can only watch foreign language films with English subtitles on there. That shit needs to change.