Hulu, one of the most popular online video streaming sites in the United States, had some bad news to note today, reporting that Viacom has pulled two of its most popular shows, “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report.”
“The Daily Show” is the third most-watched show on the site, and Colbert’s show usually ranks in the top 7.
Viacom does say that they will not be completely getting out of the streaming business, however.
Reads the press release:
Comedy Central has made “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report” available to consumers through Hulu since June 2008. Although that agreement has concluded, full-length episodes of each show will remain available at TheDailyShow.com and ColbertNation.com, respectively.
Hulu was one of the many digital distribution partners we’ve worked with over the past few years to add new outlets for our valuable and powerful content and to help drive the businesses of our partners. We had a great experience with Hulu, and we hope to work with its team again in the future.
Hulu has around 44 million monthly visitors.
Result for: viacom
In June, the three major motion picture studios, Lionsgate, Paramount, and MGM jointly announced the launch of Epix, an HD online streaming service and HD TV station that will allow users to watch the studio’s films, for free, in HD.
The studios have said this week that the expected launch date of late October is still in the cards, and launch day will see blockbuster films on the service, including “Iron Man.”
Epix is, technically, a studio-controlled venture that will give cable operators and distributors an easier way to shop for rights for movies on video-on-demand and online video. It may all sound good, but the studios have been having a little trouble securing carriage deals. Comcast even went as far as to say that they are not looking for any new TV-with-fee channels.
Epix only currently has a deal with Verizon FiOS, meaning the site will be available to a minuscule 2.5 million US citizens. The company is in talks with Dish, which would add 14 million households, but currently the talks are just that, talks.
Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman is completely faithful in the business model however, and says it will be “cash positive at the end of next year or early the following year.”
Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer agrees: “We have the right idea and the right value proposition. We’re investing in a channel that should have big equity value.”
Result for: viacom
According to the latest data from comScore VideoMetrix, Hulu has jumped up to fourth place among the largest video sites in the US, drawing an audience of 34.7 million for the month of February.
Those users watched a total of 332.5 million video streams, a giant 33 percent increase from January.
In just one month, Hulu surpassed Viacom and Microsoft in viewers and total steams viewed, and is quickly gaining on Yahoo in third place. YouTube (Google) and Fox remained the clear leaders, with 5.3 billion streams and 462.6 million streams respectively.
Since comScore first started measuring Hulu, its unique user base has grown by 410 percent and its overall streams by 277 percent.
