Those of us outside of the U.S. have been looking on with envy at the glorious job Hulu has been doing for the last couple of years.
And then news broke that Hulu was coming to the U.K. before being rolled out elsewhere. Unfortunately, due to a lack of content partners, the waiting game continues.
Hulu Beyond The U.S.
Hulu has been an outstanding success in the United States. It has brought premium television content in catch-up form to the masses over the Internet for free. Americans have adopted the service in their droves and despite the occasional hiccup, the American Hulu is doing a fine job.
But why does it have to be limited to the States? The obvious answer is it doesn’t. While those pesky (and much talked about on Web TV Wire) international copyright restrictions prevent Hulu US from being viewable in other countries, there is no reason why there can’t be a version of Hulu built for other countries and full of local content.
Hulu UK On Way
Which is exactly what Hulu is proposing happen. In March it hired someone to oversee its international operations. While May brought news of Hulu starting negotiations with several British broadcasters and content providers.
July then saw Hulu spelling out its intentions to use the U.K. as a test bed for the international version of its product before rolling out further. At that time a September launch for Hulu UK was mentioned although that seemed to be wishful thinking rather than a set-in-stone proposal from the company itself.
Mixed Fortunes
Today brought mixed news. The Telegraph first reported that Hulu was just weeks away from finalizing a content deal with ITV, one of the main British broadcasters. The deal is thought to include programming made by ITV Productions, which includes Coronation Street and Dancing On Ice.
However, less than 30 minutes later The Telegraph reported that Hulu UK wouldn’t be launched until 2010. The newspaper claimed this was a delay but it looks as though that time-line was merely speculative anyway.
Regardless of the details, it’s clear Hulu has had some trouble signing British content partners. An ITV deal looks close, and negotiations with BBC Worldwide continue, but Channel 4 looks set to concentrate on its own 4oD as well as a deal with YouTube which could see full episodes of its shows coming to the online video market leader.
Conclusions
Maybe a September launch was over-optimistic but it does seem to be taking a long time for these deals to be done. Could it be that the British broadcasters being courted by Hulu already have their online strategies in place and are resisting the lure of this American giant?
While I’m confident a Hulu UK will happen, I’m not sure it’ll either arrive soon or have anywhere near the quality of content we were hoping for. Which would be a crying shame.
