Hulu Clone Sling.com Opens

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Sling.jpgSling Media's Hulu clone Sling.com is finally open to the public. It's loaded with content from the networks, studios Warner, Sony, and MGM, as well as original content from sites such as College Humor. Unlike Hulu, it will not provide you your daily dose of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert from Comedy Central, however. Also unlike Hulu, you can get CBS there, though.

Sling.com also allows Sling Box owners to stream live TV through the site. But since only about a dozen people (a rough estimate -- Sling says "hundreds of thousands") own one of those, Sling.com is for most people the same thing as Hulu. It even syndicates much of its content from the NBC and News Corp joint venture.

This makes sense: Hulu's built a model that works for consumers and we expect more clones going forward. We do still wonder, however, how sustainable such sites will be in the long run, given that on top of expensive hosting bills, they have to return so much of their revenues to the original content creators.

See Also:
Hulu's Revenues And The Clone That Wants Them



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12 Comments

Funny that people keep calling it a Hulu clone when it's actually a Hulu partner. Hulu gets money when you watch Hulu clips on Sling.com.

And unlike Hulu, Sling will actually have a box on the market that can hook up to your TV so you can watch all of Sling.com's content from your couch.

Bigger picture: We're in game one of a seven-game series. In a few years, everyone will have all of this content. And the best-positioned will be those with the biggest, most robust distribution channel, and with the most set-top boxes in place.

I still think that's going to be the Comcasts and Verizons.
Tom Buchok (URL) said:
Thanks for the clarification, Dan.

I just fired up "It's Always Sunny..." and was getting all the familiar Hulu VOs and graphics.
insider said:
i second dan's "bigger picture" and conclusion

its almost funny watching all the startups and silicon valley brains go all the way around the world to reinvent the pedestrian cable TV business plan next door -- license great content, deploy/subsidize hardware/software in-home delivery platform
MarcoV said:
Watching reruns with commercials isn't even TV but Hulu has a niche. Shells like this for Hulu aren't going to work even if you can get it to your TV.
It's kind of crazy if you think about all the ways you can watch a tv show. You can watch a show via iTunes, Amazon digital, Xbox Live, cbs.com, Hulu, Slide, Joost, YouTube, torrent, Cable on Demand, oh and yeah via broadcasted time on your TV (pffft).

Must suck being an advertiser. Eyeballs are no longer fixed on one of three or four tv channels anymore. There is no more prime time in the future. There's only my time. Nobody looks at banner ads.

For instance, look at that google ad here on this site in the lower right hand corner. Who or why would anyone click on any of those ads.

Maybe ads will try to get more noticeable or annoying, but that will just drive readers away. That's the other thing, a competitor is just a click away.
@Bjorn

Expect to see product placement to become even more prevalent and advertisers fight for that opportunity. Even if a show is not being aired on the channel advertisers intended it to, the distribution of the show is increasing. This means there are even more eyeballs and this new demographic watching these shows "on-demand" are accepting an active experience to watching TV. This can only equate to more loyal followings and more accurate indications of who the demographic is.
David (URL) said:
I recently starting using http://parkmytv.com which hosts my slingbox for me and I'm now getting MUCh better video quality since I'm not limited to my home DSL upload speeds and I pleasantly no longer annoy those at home watching TV while I'm switching channels on them while away :) I think they are in trials now but I was able to get an account early on...
LTM said:
so, will this work with the slingcatcher or is that something to expect down the road?
Migukin said:
Why can't people in other countries watch stuff on Hulu, etc? Is it because of the additional streams? Sometimes, being an expat sucks. :-(
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