Why Netflix, HBO, And Amazon Owe Their Success To Hulu
Ten years of
innovation, lesson No. 3: You can’t—and shouldn’t—go it alone.
Remember when Netflix was
a DVD-by-mail service? And its chief rival was the brick-and-mortar outlet
Blockbuster? Feels like an eternity ago. Now Netflix looks over its shoulder at
HBO on one side and Amazon on
the other. But it was the breakthroughs generated by the less-praised and
underappreciated Hulu that pointed the
way to all of their success.
Fast Company put
Hulu on the cover of our second World's
Most Innovative Companies issue in 2009. That decision was not a dig
at Netflix or a mark of suspicion about its business. (Reed Hastings of Netflix
had been a cover subject three years earlier.) Rather, it was a reflection of
game-changing steps that Hulu was taking. At that time, Hulu was run by former
Amazon executive Jason Kilar, who had to manage an assortment of
owners—including both Fox and NBC—that had yet to embrace the idea of streaming
their content. While Kilar had access to a rich trove of TV shows, he faced an
ownership structure that was internally divided. For several of his many-headed
bosses, the prospect of Hulu was at best a test, and at worst a threat to their
core operation.
Kilar’s tactic was to play these owners off against each other
just enough to keep them at bay, while he and his team furiously worked to
create a new kind of viewing experience. Suddenly, streaming TV and even movies
was easy, fun—and legal. At that point, the model was ad-supported in a
user-friendly way that still hasn’t been replicated: Viewers could choose which
ads they wanted to see, increasing the value for advertisers by constructing a
qualified audience.
Eventually, Hulu’s corporate structure—not to mention the rise of
streaming elsewhere, among its owners and most notably via Netflix—put the
company on its heels and Kilar out of a job. But the user experience, design,
and mass-market acceptance of streaming were all created or accelerated by
Hulu. The most common narrative of innovation success often follows a single
disruptor—Steve Jobs, Phil Knight, Mark Zuckerberg—without appreciating how
much rests on the shoulders of progenitors and peers who advanced the game.
Today, of course, we expect to be able to stream everything via
apps. (Back in 2008, most viewing happened on a desktop computer via the web
browser.) Hulu is among a constellation of providers continuing to advance a
revolution whose ultimate outcome is still unclear. Hulu hasn’t reaped the
lion’s share of the rewards from its early innovations, but that doesn’t mean
it didn’t have a powerful impact. And it continues to play a role in pressing
Netflix, HBO, and others to keep advancing.
ROBERT SAFIAN
https://www.fastcompany.com/3068297/most-innovative-companies/why-netflix-hbo-and-amazon-owe-their-success-to-hulu
No comments:
Post a Comment