Hulu has engaged a partnership with ABC to ‘air’ their primetime shows on their system. Not a few, all of them –

Today marks the official start of a new relationship: the launch of ABC content on Hulu. Things kick off with five episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, the primetime drama set at Seattle Grace Hospital, where surgical interns try to navigate the challenges of romance and friendship as they scrub in for complicated medical cases. The videos posted on Hulu will mirror the episodes most recently aired on TV, which includes the two-part Season 5 opener, two episodes from the middle of the season, and another pair that lead up to the heart-wrenching finale.We have more ABC titles on the way, too.

Check our Hulu Days of Summer calendar to see what’s new each day this week; we’ll also post clues to the next day’s content each weekday on our Twitter and Facebook pages. (You can also check the Twitter feed on the main Hulu Blog page for clues if you’re not on Twitter or Facebook.

Here’s the iteresting tidbit. Advertising onair the going rate is $20/thousand on average. On Hulu its $60 per. Why the disparity? Less competition for eyeballs means that the advertising that is viewed isn’t sandwiched between the shamwow guy and a Billy Mays tribute. Even at the higher pay rate the advertising is more effective.

But Hulu is not alone. Less fanfare of course but YouTube now has their shows category up and running as well. Fact when my granddaughter was here she and I watched old mickey mouse cartoons together on YouTube.

Linky.

The current IPTV champ has already inked deals for international content from Indian and Britain. The interesting bit is they may return the favor and take their show/services on the ‘Road to Morocco’. –

Of course, the idea is to change this. Speaking with The Financial Times, Andy Forssell - Hulu senior vice president of content acquisition and distribution - said that the company is in the midst of discussions to launch the site in “six to eight” of the leading broadcast markets.

We’re not sure why he’s confused about numbers seven and eight. But there you have it. And the company’s new British and Indian deals are at least a small step towards the site’s internationalization.

Hulu also argues that these deals deliver content that most Americans haven’t seen. But knowing Americans - a race of people who are interested in themselves - they aren’t likely to see it now either. Ex-pats? Sure. Forssell also told The FT that the company has been in talks with The Beeb and ITV about pacts involving their shows as well.

If I were them I would do it. There are some international markets far less regulated and mind controlled by the ISP’s than here in the US.

linky.

The Brits through the BBC and others are attempting to develop an Open Source device like the Roku for IPTV content. I think it is a novel idea in my mind. So long as the source choices are user configerable I say go for it. Others are of a different mind however –

Project Canvas, the joint venture of the BBC, ITV and British Telecom, must be up to something good considering that some makers of consumer electronics (CE) gear are squealing “foul”.

The UK’s Intellect Technology Association, whose members include Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, Toshiba and Pace, said in a submission to the BBC Trust that Project Canvas risks isolating the UK as a “technological island” in a global market by trying to create a standard IPTV set-top box for just the UK. That, of course, is exactly the opposite of what the Project Canvas members have set out to do.

Project Canvas was formed to create an industry-standard technology that’s open and free to license that can be added to any set-top box. It will allow video on demand to be delivered over the Internet for viewing on a TV set by services such as the BBC’s iPlayer and others. It can also be added and used on any Internet-connected device such as a portable media player like the iPhone or iPod touch. Watching TV shows and movies on demand, anytime, anywhere, will have an enormous worldwide appeal.

Why the opposition? Well the likes of Sony and Toshiba who own a good chunk of that market don’t want the competition by every mom and pop shop that can burn a cd for one. The other is more complex. A project like this would jump the pond with relative ease. Here in the US the CE makers have a pretty clear deal with the ISP with lockin sales to maintain the ISP’s walled garden services. Project Canvas would blow that asunder. They just don’t know it yet.

More here.
linky.

With a new month in progress the big worry seems to be the swine flu rather than Conficker. I hope you enjoyed your weekend and avoided being infected by either. Here’s a few items you may have missed over the weekend.

Linux Desktop Hits 1% Market Share Milestone

Make that 2%!

Bad Day in Court for Sprint-Clearwire WiMAX Effort

Google, Alliance Sued Over Android Name

DOCSIS 3.0 To Blanket U.S. By 2013

The Problem With Cable Is Television

Cablecos look to businesses for growth
Silicon Valley crown up for grabs

The press release comes to us touting 1 million subscribers to AT&T’s Uverse TV service by month end, and service availability to 17 million, along with declining cost of delivery. Geeeeze, I’m not sure I’d go around bragging about a huge investment that has earned a 5.8% take rate. I wonder how big the take rate will be for the faster broadband product available to for those who don’t want TV service?

AT&T planned to add one million U-Verse TV subscribers by the end of the year. The company will hit that benchmark next week, Stankey said.

“Operationally, we’ve hit our stride,” he told analysts during a UBS-sponsored conference on Tuesday. The event was broadcast over the Internet.

The company plans to make the service available to 17 million homes by the end of the year.

U-Verse has helped keep AT&T in the game as its traditional digital subscriber line, or DSL, service has faltered against cable competition. Roughly 54% of new U-Verse Internet users didn’t have DSL before, Stankey said.

Also, installation times and costs have fallen, while average revenue per user for video has grown in double digits, percentage-wise, he said. (CNN)

DirecTV is offering new set top boxes that do on demand streaming via a broadband connection. a couple of decades back, the prospect of hundreds of channels of programming direct for the satellite was cutting edge and an unbeatable business model. Now there’s a rumor of DirecTV TVoIP service similar to Hulu.

Today were are in the midst of a paradigm shift, when programming becomes content, and rather than consulting programming schedules for when to view or Tivo, increasingly we select content from a menu to view on demand.

Don’t look for DirecTV to scuttle their multi bird system anytime soon, but I’m betting they’ve seen the future. At least they’ve put a toe into the TVoIP pond. In the very near future that pond will be an ocean of  millions of videos from thousands of producers, all available as on demand content. There will not be much of a business in a closed system of  400 - 500 broadcast channels when that happens.

We’ve received a couple of anonymous tips that DirectTV, a $24 billion satellite TV provider, may be entering the online TV wars with a new site called DirectTV Web On Demand. The site would compete with startups like Hulu, Joost, Fancast, Sling.com, etc.

We don’t know much about the service, or even if it’s real. One of the tipsters says they’ve worked on the project and supplied us with the mockup screen shot above, which could quite possibly be real. On the other hand, we’ve spoken with industry insiders and they say they’ve heard nothing about the project. (Tech Crunch)