Cable Guys Plan Their Own Hulus: Anyone Interested In “Authentication” or “Entitlement”?
What’s better than Hulu, the video service that lets you watch your favorite TV shows on your laptop? A service that lets you watch even more TV shows on your laptop - if you’re a cable TV subscriber.
That’s the thinking behind plans some of the big cable TV operators and cable networks are drawing up. But while it’s tempting to describe these offerings-to-be as Hulu 2.0, it’s not nearly that simple.
Both Comcast (CMCSA) and Timer Warner Cable (TWC) want to give their subscribers Web access to more shows than they can currently get - at least legally. But the two companies have competing plans, based on different technologies and philosophies. Here’s the latest info I have on the offerings-to-be, which the WSJ first wrote about last night:
But while the strategies and specifics of the plans are different, the underlying philosophies are the same. Both plans are meant to keep customers from defecting to TV services offered by the satellite companies and telcos, or to keep them from cutting the cord altogether: Time Warner Cable has been warning its programming partners about a test in Texas where up to 3% of its cable subs have dropped the service in favor of free TV from the Web.
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