I’m a big fan of NBC’s show Chuck. I’m also a fan of CBS’s show How I Met Your Mother. And I want to like FOX’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
As I write this, it occurs to me that these shows each have something in common. Primary characters on each have appeared in a Joss Whedon program. Chuck’s Adam Baldwin was on Whedon’s Firefly, as was Sarah Connor’s Summer Glau. How I Met Your Mother’s Neil Patrick Harris recently appeared as the eponymous lead of Whedon’s game-changing Dr Horrible’s SingAlong Blog.
(Expect to see another column in the near future about personality as brand. Are you Whedonesque? Are you Fey? Are you Abramsish? Or maybe you’re a Gaiman? If you want Moore do you want Alan or Ronald D?)
These shows have something else in common, and it's the reason I listed them in the first place. They’re all on Monday night between 8 and 9 pm.
This is annoying.
It’s especially annoying when I suddenly have a conflict on Monday night and can’t watch any of them in real time.
I’m a late adopter. It took me a while before I had a stereo that did not include an 8-track player. It took me longer still to throw out the Compaq lugabout with its 4.25” disk drives. My cellphone has no camera. I do not TiVo, nor do I possess a DVR. I have a VCR, but I’m not sure when was the last time I actually recorded something with it. To me a VCR is useful as a remote-control cable box for a TV that was only made for UHF and VHF. It’s also a handy way to run the TV sound through the stereo.
But a VCR seems a really cumbersome way, these days, of recording television shows.
Thank goodness for hulu. I watched last night's Chuck on my laptop this morning before actually getting out of bed.
Do a google search for hulu and YouTube and you’ll find links to many a blog. That’s where I first heard of hulu, actually – on Salon’s Machinist blog. The Machinist column was unenthusiastic in it’s original piece on hulu in August 2007. Exactly two months later Machinist encouraged its readers to sign up for trial accounts.
And I did. I was an early adopter of hulu.
You no longer need to sign up for an account with hulu in order to watch its content. Check it out. It’s changed the way I watch television.
I don’t record television. I just wait for it to be on hulu the next day. This allows me to leapfrog the DVR and go straight to content-over-the-net.
I can watch the content of my choice at the time of my choosing. A DVR will do the same thing, but I actually have to set the DVR. Hulu has the content I want without me having to arrange for hulu to record it.
A TiVo would, no doubt, learn my tastes and record things I would like it to record. I find this creepy, though. And there’s only so many hours in the day. I’m sure I’d like The Office, and 30 Rock, and Sanctuary, and Life and any number of other shows for which I don’t currently have time.
And evidently I don’t have time for The Sarah Connor Chronicles either.
I was watching Sarah Connor last year on hulu, and I fell behind the schedule. For current programming, hulu keeps 4 to 5 weeks of a given show, so that should be no problem. But then I fell more than 5 weeks behind and I officially missed one. I haven’t watched Sarah Connor since.
Which is a shame, because I’m a big Summer Glau fan. Oh well, I have Firefly and Serenity on DVD…
That’s the one problem with hulu. Content is not permanent. It will go away. Especially if it’s a current TV show.
Hulu is a joint venture between News Corp (FOX) and NBC. They realize that if they keep all of a show available to me for free (or nearly free – I do have to watch some commercials) then I will not go out and buy the DVD box set of the season. And the money for the studios is in the DVDs, for now (although there’s also money in them thar’ commercials I have to watch on hulu).
When season 2 of Chuck was about to start I got a hankering to watch some of season 1. I found that hulu did not have the episodes I wanted to see online, so I went out and bought the DVDs. This indicates that hulu might be an effective marketing tool for DVDs.
For established and completed shows hulu is even more officially insidious, though. The first season of Buffy is on hulu for free. Watch it! Enjoy! Oh, you want to see season 2? Well, I’m afraid you’re going to have to go buy the DVDs…
Actually, I just checked and Buffy season 2 is on hulu as well. Still, you have to buy the DVDs if you want to see seasons 3 through 7. Legally, anyway.
Whedon is pretty well represented on hulu. Angel season 1 is there. Firefly’s complete half-season is there (good job on that one, FOX. I won’t be surprised if you screw up Dollhouse, too). And of course Dr Horrible is on hulu. (Is there any Whedon television completely missing from hulu?)
Here’s the thing I can’t figure out. Why would they put complete runs of shows on hulu when they're available on DVD? I understand giving away the first season for free. The First Taste Is Free is a time-honored marketing tradition for pushers and ice cream vendors.
Maybe they really are making money on the commercials. (Shhh, don't tell the writers.)
For you Neil Patrick Harris fans – the complete Doogie Howser MD is on hulu as of this writing.
As I go through and check the shows in which I might be interested I find that the complete Arrested Development is on hulu. As is the complete Highlander television series. I never watched either one, but I've heard good things.
The complete Burn Notice is on hulu. This has not always been the case. They must by trying to promote the show. Watch it now while you can. Seriously. Stop reading this. Go watch Burn Notice, starting with the pilot. Here.
Still reading? Then help me out here. It appears the complete It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is on hulu. I’ve heard good things. Should I watch this from the beginning while I can?
They only have the most recent 5 episodes of Sarah Connor on hulu. Guess I won’t be catching up on that one.
Hulu has become the video portal of choice for me. And I’m guessing it’s gotten popular enough with other folks to cause a significant change: Hulu is now carrying some content that has no direct association with NBC or News Corp. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report – both owned by Viacom – are now on hulu. At any given time you can catch up on the last 2 weeks worth of full episodes of surprisingly informative fake news.
I’ve tried to watch shows online that aren’t on hulu, but the experience has been dissatisfying. Many of them require me to download their viewing software.
Have I mentioned I’m a late adopter? I try not to download anything extra unless I have to.
If you want me to watch your show then you’ll have it on hulu. How I Met Your Mother - I'm talking to you. Full episodes, please.
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2 comments:
Here's hulu's Achilles heel: It's utility is at the mercy of your internet provider. You clearly have very fast, very reliable internet, hence you can watch videos online at your leisure.
As you know, at my place the internet may be high speed, but it's maybe not as high speed as yours, and you've got to sit through occasional hiccups in the stream.
But my squeeze, BritBratty, lives out in the country, where she can't even get high speed internet (except by a satellite hookup and that's crazy expensive). Obviously, there is no huluing on dial-up. And that's where Tivo comes in. She's got DirecTV and a Tivo and, I must say, I can see why she thinks it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. It can record 100 hours of television. We can watch it whenever we want, keep or delete, go back and forth, and skip commercials with the greatest of ease.
What's more, what you Tivo you can burn to DVD. That's how BritBratty has amassed, for example, several dozen DVDs of New Wave and pop music videos. And lots of movies. And she's in the process of getting me the entire three-year run of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It's not as nice as a DVD you buy from the studio, of course, as you have to edit out the commercials, but it's free (after a fashion).
Maybe when reliable high speed internet is available everywhere (and I have a nicer laptop), and when FOX and NBC actually have stuff I really want to watch, I'll be drawn to hulu. But for now, I'll just wait until I head to the country a couple nights a week to see what the ol' Tivo has got for us.
You're absolutely right. Hulu just doesn't work unless you have high-speed access...
...Which means advertisers on hulu are reaching directly and exclusively into the homes (or possibly coffee shops) of people with high-speed access.
Interesting.
I suspect that "people with high-speed access" is a sought-after demographic.
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