The Simpsons Meet Steve Jobs, and Hulu Captures the Moment
by Peter Kafka
Posted on December 1, 2008 at 5:56 AM PT
Did you miss “The Simpsons” last night? Me too. Actually, the show’s been off my radar for a long time, which means I wouldn’t have seen last night’s parody of Apple (AAPL) and Steve Jobs unless someone pointed it out to me.
Luckily, we have the Internet for that.
Right now, you can find clips of the episode throughout Google’s YouTube, where they’re technically not supposed to be. (Though in truth, Fox’s copyright patrol has never seemed that zealous about getting Simpsons stuff off the site.)
More to the point, you can find the entire episode on Hulu, the joint venture between News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox and GE’s (GE) NBC (News Corp. is the owner of this Web site). And Hulu will also allow anyone–say, a blogger who covers the media business–to embed all of the episode, or a selected clip, on his or her site. (Per a reader’s gentle suggestion, I’ll note that this episode is also available at Fox.com. But Fox.com doesn’t provide embedding options.)
That’s the kind of flexibility that’s now old hat in the Web world, but it’s worth noting how far along the networks have come in a very short time: A few years ago NBC was still trying to stop YouTube from showing millions of people the “Lazy Sunday” clip from “Saturday Night Live.” Now all of us expect to see the networks’ best stuff online, with their blessing, just a few hours after it airs. And the networks are happy to oblige.
This still doesn’t solve the dollars-to-pennies dilemma that NBC chief Jeff Zucker and other media bosses fret about: The content the media companies can charge a lot of money for in its original state (on TV, on paper, etc.) is worth much less once it gets to the Web.
But that’s a lot to absorb early on a post-holiday Monday. For now, here are three minutes of “The Simpsons” at the Apple (sorry, Mapple) store.
Comments
Did Hulu pay for this post? You can watch it directly at fox.com
Posted by marley beezle at December 1st, 2008 at 6:26 amHaven’t got my check from Hulu yet, Marley. And yes, you can watch it at Fox.com; I’ll note that above. But the point is the same: The networks have gotten very good, very fast (for them) about putting their best stuff up on the Web. Do note, though, that Fox.com site hard to navigate and doesn’t allow embedding.
Posted by Peter Kafka at December 1st, 2008 at 7:01 amWell, don’t forget Hulu (and the other network TV sites) don’t allow you to view anything outside the US. (The embedded player above just gives me an apology and link to Hulu’s explanation.)
So for now I’ll settle for quicker, higher quality bit torrent files instead.
Posted by Chris Dawson at December 1st, 2008 at 7:13 amFrom the Forest for the Trees department: The clip from Hulu skipped constantly. My *available* bandwidth: 10MB
Posted by Mark Lipsky at December 1st, 2008 at 9:40 amis this news?
Posted by Sam Harrison at December 1st, 2008 at 12:45 pmChris, isn’t Hulu now available in some non-US markets? In any case, figuring out how to license content for international Web users, let alone sell ads against it, is a challenge the networks aren’t ready to tackle yet.
Posted by Peter Kafka at December 1st, 2008 at 12:56 pmMark, I find Hulu to be pretty consistently good about this stuff. Is this a recurring problem?
Sam, I guess not. Except to the people who didn’t know about it.
surely there’s more “meaty” news out there???
Posted by Sam Harrison at December 1st, 2008 at 1:56 pmHi Peter –
First time I accessed a clip off-site. Haven’t had much difficulty on-site. And the site is generally great for TV where commercials are accepted. But for film, where video ads are simply thrown on and where stream quality (resolution) is generally low as they can reasonably go, not so much. As a film distributor myself I’m saddened that filmmakers are beginning to think of Hulu – and other ad-supported sites – as an acceptable alternative to theatrical. But that’s another topic.
Mark.
Posted by Mark Lipsky at December 1st, 2008 at 2:32 pmInteresting, Mark. I haven’t seen an problems with embedded clips, either. I don’t think there’s a difference in transmission methods, but I don’t know, either.
Posted by Peter Kafka at December 2nd, 2008 at 4:49 amAs far as movies: You’re right, movies are less than ideal on Hulu. And for that matter, other streaming sites, like Netflix’s new streaming feature. On the other hand, they’re free.