YouTube Turns Up The Heat On Hulu
Posted 11/25/2009 at 8:20am
| by J.R. Bookwalter

The battle for online cinema dominance has been heating up in recent months. YouTube, once a vast, wild West-style wasteland full of dancing babies and funny animal videos, is going in a more commercial direction with advertising and
even full-length motion pictures and TV shows in an effort to compete with other free services such as Hulu.
It was only a year ago that YouTube announced partnerships with studios such as MGM and Lionsgate as well as a number of independent labels, bringing older catalog films such as
Super Size Me and
A Fistful of Dollars to eager viewers. Since then, more content from channels such as PBS, Shout! Factory and Starz Media (i.e., Anchor Bay) have been added to the fray. YouTube is also rumored to be working with Sony and Warner Bros. in an effort to make newer titles available as well.
Like Hulu, for now YouTube is offering such streaming media for free, including advertising links to vendors such as Amazon.com and iTunes. But recent reports claim that YouTube is negotiating with major Hollywood studios to kick things up a notch with a pay-per-view model.
“If a deal is reached, it would be a major change for YouTube, which has largely offered free content supported by advertising,” the New York Times reported back in September. “It would also put YouTube, which is owned by Google, in direct competition with services from Netflix, Amazon and Apple, which allow users to buy or rent movies online.”
Competitor Hulu, a joint venture by NBC Studios and News Corp., has far less viewers than Google-owned YouTube, but thanks to its ever-expanding catalog of film and television content, Hulu has actually been more profitable thus far than YouTube. With recent rumors swirling about Hulu being reworked into a pay-per-view or subscription service instead of an ad-based model, all eyes will be on YouTube to see how they respond to such a threat.