Interesting news here that Comedy Central (a Viacom property), home of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report,” is going to pull those two shows from the Hulu line-up, as of March 9.
Apparently the reason is that Comedy Central and Hulu couldn’t agree on a revenue split of advertising generated on Hulu. So Comedy Central figured it would really rather online consumers view the shows on their respective Comedy Central sites.
Between this development and the rumors about a pay wall being implemented at Hulu (here and here, among others), one has to wonder if the experiment of inter-network cooperation on neutral-ground Hulu is now complete. It would appear that especially in tough times, and with precious advertising dollars always at stake, the licensing negotiations for content is still the immovable object to the irresistible force of large online audience numbers. What will be interesting is how online consumers who have grown accustomed to “The Daily Show” or “Colbert Report” via Hulu rise up in protest and flood Viacom with complaints or will they merely change their browser bookmarks or feeds? Will they go to iTunes? Netflix?
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