With Kilar Out At Hulu, The Media Companies Will Take Control

With Jason Kilar now out at Hulu, the company’s direction may soon make an abrupt change. A change in business model would seem the most likely to occur now with Kilar out of the way. But a change in business model would also mean a potential change in mission for Hulu.

Currently, Hulu’s stated mission is to, “Help people find and enjoy the world’s premium video content when, where and how they want it.” And that’s been a true mission for Hulu under Kilar’s reign. His motto? “Customers always win,” is a saying that Kilar has been known to tell his staff. But now that he’s gone, there is a huge problem at the company — there’s no one to fight for the consumer.

Hulu is owned by various media companies, including Disney, News Corp., and Comcast and its those media companies content that you will find on the site. You will notice that there is one media company whose name isn’t on that list: CBS. And that’s why its rare to find CBS owned content on the site currently. But all of that may soon change now with a new CEO coming in to Hulu, a decision I’m sure which will be greatly influenced by the major stakeholders in the company (Disney, News Corp. and Comcast).

The new Hulu business model is likely to require that Hulu customers also be paying cable subscribers, meaning cutting the cord just got a whole lot more difficult. The new business model would require authentication from customers, similar to the way HBO GO requires authentication to use its app on your tablet.

A change like this would really suck for consumers, but would make these media and cable companies very happy because it would allow them to further slow down the rate of people who “cut the cord” to their cable TV subscription. And again, with Kilar out of the picture, I’m betting this change will now happen much more quickly than previously anticipated.

Which brings us back to Hulu’s original mission, the key to the mission is the last part, “Help people find and enjoy the world’s premium video content when, where and how they want it.” Soon it won’t be how you want it, but rather how the media companies want you to watch and enjoy their content.