By all accounts, 2011 went well for Hulu despite the economic uncertainty. According to CEO Jason Kilar even the company itself was surprised by the $420 million in revenue it generated over the course of the year, given that it represented 60 percent year-over-year growth. Coupled with strong numbers for the subscription-based side of its business, Kilar expects the company to spend around half a billion on new content this year.
Our model allows us to profitably pay content owners approximately 50% more in content licensing fees per subscriber when compared to other similarly priced online subscription services. We believe our approach will enable us to secure more valuable content for our users and to secure content in more attractive windows than would otherwise be possible. To that end, we are excited to invest approximately half a billion in content in 2012 on behalf of our users.
Read Kilar’s full post on Hulu’s blog.
More in Media
‘JG believed that even in a demanding industry, it was possible to lead with both rigor and humanity’
The industry pays respects to OpenX CEO John Gentry, who sadly passed away last week.
The Rundown: Google has drawn its AI payment lines — and publishers’ leverage is narrow
For publishers trying to navigate AI licensing, the message was blunt: Google is willing to pay for access, but not for training – and it remains unwilling to define AI Overviews as a compensable use of journalism.
Media Briefing: Google’s latest core update a reminder that pageviews can’t remain the primary metric
Google’s latest core update signals pageviews can no longer be the primary metric, favoring intent-solving publishers over scale.