Author: Edmund Lee / Source: New York Times
Manu Fernandez/Associated Press
Everyone’s gunning for Netflix.
Amazon, AT&T, Apple and the Walt Disney Company have spent billions to create or bolster their own streaming networks to take on the giant in the field. Some, like Apple and Amazon, are meant to be aggregators — selling both original content and offering shows from channels like HBO — making them similar to traditional cable providers.
Others, like AT&T and Disney, have positioned themselves as services that sell only their content — for now.But Netflix remains the industry leader. The company has come a long way since its early days of mailing off DVDs in red envelopes. It added 7.8 million new customers through the end of March, according to the first-quarter report it issued on Tuesday, for a total of 148 million across the globe, with 60 million in the United States. Its subscriber growth has slowed, however, more in the United States than elsewhere, partly because of price increases and stiffening competition. The streaming service booked $344 million in profit on $4.5 billion in sales in the quarter ending in March.
For the moment, though, Netflix is soundly beating its streaming rivals — in subscribers, viewing time and library of content. But one is closer than the others: Hulu.
Hulu has long had trouble steering its own course, because it has had to deal with multiple corporate overlords since it was founded in 2007.
For much of its existence, its ownership was split among several companies: Disney, 21st Century Fox, Comcast and more recently Time Warner. The ownership of this built-by-committee digital outfit has become less complicated in recent days.
When Disney formally completed its acquisition of most of Fox last month, it became Hulu’s majority owner. Hulu rid itself of another stakeholder on Monday, when AT&T — which acquired Time Warner last year — sold the stake that once belonged to Time Warner back to Hulu. Now Disney is the controlling owner, and Comcast has the smaller piece.
Hulu originally made a name for itself as a next-day streamer of shows from other networks. That started to change a few years ago, when it got into the business of creating its own programming. Most notably, it gave the green light to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the first streaming-native show to win an Emmy for best drama series.
While it may not generate much hype, Hulu is Netflix’s closest competitor, despite some key differences between the two companies.
Almost stubbornly, Netflix sells one thing — a deep assortment of original and licensed shows and films meant to please almost every niche.
Hulu, on the other hand, has three products that may better reflect what the future of streaming will look like. It has a live-TV service that replicates a small cable bundle at $45 a month; a video-on-demand service that sells for $12 a month without ads (this one acts most like Netflix); and a streaming service with advertising that…
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