Hulu Pulls Content from TV.com, Strikes First Blow in Battle Over Internet TV Market 2009

TopTenREVIEWS Internet TV Sites Review Blog

By Derek Hardman Feb 19th, 2009

Internet TV has accelerated from novelty to industry in only a few years time. Now, like television networks before it, lines are being drawn and trenches forming between competing Internet TV providers.

Hulu, perhaps the preeminent Internet TV site, has announced that it will be pulling content from competitor TV.com, initiating what could be the first of many battles between competing Internet TV competitors. TV.com has, following a re-launch that restructured the site to emphasize its video portal functionality, taken an edge over Hulu, which ranks fourth behind YouTube, Yahoo and MySpace for video content. In the month of January, TV.com’s number of unique viewers increased by more than 263%, or nearly 5.9 million viewers to Hulu’s 4.5 million for the same month.

The decision by Hulu to pull content from TV.com is likely a response to these reports and, moreover, an attempt to stymie the growth of its CBS-owned competitor. Hulu still has a year left of its 2-year contract with FOX and NBC as their exclusive outside distributor. But, as FX’s decision to pull It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia off of Hulu might prove, getting content is only a fraction of the battle, keeping it, and lawfully at that, is where the war is really decided. That might also explain why Hulu pulled its content from Boxee as well, and hint at future content pulling to come.

Whether Hulu’s actions against TV.com will prove effective in diminishing its competitor’s visitor numbers is still uncertain. Nevertheless, in an industry that has practically “sprung up over night,” the cut-and-dry order that has typified traditional TV networks and studios need not apply. Here, for the time being anyway, competition is fast, fierce and today’s champion is often, and likely, tomorrow’s also-ran.