Hulu May Remain Free After All

Updating a story we've written about a couple times since earlier this year, Hulu has no plans to charge you for its content. That's according to a source for Entertainment Weekly who says that if any content requires your cash, it will be on top of the freebies Hulu already offers. Now, I will caution you that the magazine doesn't name its source and that it was just a week ago that News Corp. deputy chair Chase Carey said charges would begin in 2010. Then again, as Entertainment Weekly points out, Rupert Murdoch's corporate culture talks a lot and sometimes doesn't back it up. So maybe they're just marching to the beat of a theoretical drummer on this issue. It does seem like a smarter business move to experiment with models built on the payment structure first before making the wholesale change. But given Hulu's deep pockets and massive collection of quality programming - Fox, NBC/Universal, and Disney all own chunks of it - it's not like viewers would have a great deal of choice if Hulu started charging for everything tomorrow. Still, all three corporations will make money in the long run no matter which model they eventually accept. Hulu won't be entirely free forever, even if you don't have to pay a usage fee upfront. Advertising revenue will only be increasing through online channels for TV content over the next several years. The further monetization of Hulu may very likely start there, with an upper tier of programming similar to HBO and Showtime available for a subscription fee. I could see more recent movies from those three companies finding homes on Hulu, and you'd have to pay for that. There are plenty of websites that offer "premium" content and they all have ads, and Hulu will probably be no different. But in the short term, we may still get everything gratis, but with "limited commercial interruption."