NBC Universal clearly can’t wait until the luanch of Hulu (its
joint venture with News Corp.) to offer full episodes of hit shows to
viewers online.
Via a press release, NBC
has
announced that it will be offering its top television shows for users
to download up to a week after broadcast. The videos will be
ad-supported, which will allow NBC to provide the shows for free.
Confirmed shows for the launch include Heroes,
The
Office, Life, Bionic Woman,
30 Rock, Friday Night Lights,
Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and The
Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
NBC Direct – Launching This Fall
The new service, called NBC Direct will
launch this fall,
coinciding with the new fall season of shows. This news is really
starting to make me wonder if Hulu will become a reality, and if either
company involved knows what they are doing.
Currently, Hulu is “supposed” to enter private beta in
October,
which is already later than the previously planned September
testing.
These delays will only make it harder for Hulu to succeed as
the
competition gains ground, including Amazon’s new Unbox
service, which is already
offering downloads of several
Fox
and NBC season premieres for free.
It is interesting to hear that NBC plans to offer shows for
free download, considering the recent news that it would be pulling
content off iTunes due to disagreements on pricing with Apple.
Ad Supported Downloads
For NBC Direct, ad-supported downloads will be the only option
at
launch, but future plans call for automatic delivery,
download-to-own/rent, and subscription models.
With News
Corp. securing rights for shows
on MySpace, NBC creating its own video-on-demand service, and
both >entering
deals with Amazon,
it looks like News Corp. and NBC Universal are making sure they have
backup strategies in place if Hulu fails.
After all, no one is really
expecting a joint venture between two competing companies to last very
long.
Michael Garrett is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com
