Fox delays new show airing on HULU free by 8 days. Sees piracy jump as high as 189%

[Jason California]

There's nothing personal about it.

OK, go to town.

[costello]

OK, go to town.

I didn't mean it like that, but that's cool.

[Jason California]

I didn't mean it like that, but that's cool.

There's nothing personal about it.

[costello]

There's nothing personal about it.

[Ben]

It's nice to have some data to support a common-sense understanding of consumers' motivations: they want to support the shows they watch by obtaining them legally, but they also want to watch at their own convenience. The decisions of networks and production companies are no longer a limiting factor for the latter motivation.

Obviously they get less from Hulu than if people were to watch shows when they air because of the differences in advertising prices, but as this data shows, limiting Hulu access won't increase ratings at airtime. The choice is not "some money" vs. "more money," it's "some money" vs. "less money." As long as companies refuse to recognize that reality, I doubt we'll see any really significant changes in business models.

They need to realize the rules have changed and they're no longer in control.

[Kirblar]

This further shows how stupid the Nielsen system is. Willing to bet that almost none of the people "pirating" the content actually matter when it comes to calculating advertising dollars.

[Greygor]

This was a surprise to them?

Even if you have a free-to-air show you'll find people downloading it if you delay the source

[SidekicksRevenge]

It's nice to have some data to support a common-sense understanding of consumers' motivations: they want to support the shows they watch by obtaining them legally, but they also want to watch at their own convenience. The decisions of networks and production companies are no longer a limiting factor for the latter motivation.

Obviously they get less from Hulu than if people were to watch shows when they air because of the differences in advertising prices, but as this data shows, limiting Hulu access won't increase ratings at airtime. The choice is not "some money" vs. "more money," it's "some money" vs. "less money." As long as companies refuse to recognize that reality, I doubt we'll see any really significant changes in business models.

We don't necessarily know any of this. We know that it means more people went to torrent the show and left self-righteous comments about their poor kids being raised in a world where "angry cooking show with my 'rents" is somehow a reward worth striving for.

What we don't know is how many people bit the bullet and watched the show when it was on. And I don't think we know how many hulu-watchers they can lose so long as xx number of them watch it on good ol' fashioned TV. I'll be that, for now, the money actually does swing in Fox's favor.

They need to realize the rules have changed and they're no longer in control.

I don't think the rules have changed so much as they are changing. TV-on-the-internet is going to change things, no matter how hard networks resist that change. But I think they can and have slowed down the inevitable.

[Kevin T Brown]

Fox delaying their shows by 8 days is new? They were doing it with House all of last season. I was having DVR problems (thankfully it's no longer a problem) and I kept missing it, so I went online to watch it and discovered the 8 day delay then. What ended up happening is since I couldn't record it and couldn't watch it when I wanted to, I stopped watching it altogether. They lost a viewer, well 2 actually when you include my wife, because of the delay.

[Ben]

This further shows how stupid the Nielsen system is. Willing to bet that almost none of the people "pirating" the content actually matter when it comes to calculating advertising dollars.

Nor should they since they don't see any advertising!