NewFront News and Views: Hulu's New Cable Party

Presentation Hulu chief executive Mike Hopkins teased one main theme early on when suggesting 60 percent of Hulu subs watch quoton the best screen availablequot an indirect reference to smart TVs and devices like Roku Predicting that 2015 will be the year Hulu breaks out Hopkins formally announced Cablevision Systems as the first multichannel operators to offer Hulu on TV in some fashion that fashion to be determined and implemented later this summer quotAnd we39ll roll out to several other providers as wellquot he added Mission accomplished there now that Hulu entered similar agreements earlier this week with a group of MSOs including Mediacom and Atlantic Broadband Mediacom went a step further by clearing Netflix to be delivered among its subscribers via TiVo For advertisers Hulu is a more attractive vehicle to consumers due to less clutter less commercial breaks and the ability to dynamically insert relevant spots anytime senior vice president Peter Naylor advocated And with some sponsors Hulu is willing to create messages that feature viewers using their products or services while in front of the set A demonstration spot incorporated FritoLay39s quotWavyquot chips Grade 35 JacksNews Five new scripted series will debut between summer and next winter starting with NYCbased comedy amp8220Difficult Peopleamp8221 Amy Poehler is one of the executive producers Up next amp8220Casualamp8221 dysfunctional family involving bachelor brother and newlydivorced sister with Jason Reitman as executive producer and amp8220Rocketjump The Showamp8221 amp8220Video Game High Schoolamp8221 creator Freddie Wong in a satire about making short videos Not far behind will be amp8220The Wayamp8221 family involved in a faithbased movement executive produced by Jason Katims of amp8220Friday Night Lightsamp8221 and amp8220Parenthoodamp8221 and amp8220112263amp8221 the muchtouted adaptation of Stephen Kingamp8217s novel starring James Franco and overseen by King and JJ Abrams Grade 45 JacksHost Killam got a few digs in while Hopkins and his Hulu lieutenants handled themselves well Grade 35 JacksOverall Grade 4 Jacks Wellorganized and paced effort with good talking points and much news layered throughoutSpecial note first of two Hulu39s exclusive streaming rights deal for amp8220Seinfeldamp8221 may end up as one of the most overblown developments of this UpfrontNewFront period Did everyone forget that amp8220Seinfeldamp8221 has been in syndication on TV stations for years and will continue to be offered this way The Cablevision Systems affiliate deal is the far bigger story deserving of headlines Let39s see how Netflix Amazon Studios etc react Still nice to see Jerry Seinfeld on another stage so soon after that celebrated Crackle visit last month Pleasure again to hear his answers to audience inquiriesSpecial note second of two Collective Digital Studios39 turn this past Tuesday contained both a highlight and lowlight of this season The highlight quotGotta Sharequot a funny opening number by Improv Everywhere on the exploding impact of social media Beautifully pulled off The lowlight One of Harper39s Bazaar39s editors interviewing three popular fashionbeauty content creators If you didn39t glance at the teleprompter near the rear of SVA Theater you wouldn39t have known that the entire segment was scripted right down to the editor39s questions I came away disgusted by their attempt to put one over on the crowd The threesome Meredith Foster Alexa Levy and Wendy Nguyen are extremely articulate and poised people who could have handled this without the crutch of a script or a prompter 0 Jacks to whoever came up with this whoever approved it whoever didn39t raise objections and the Harper39s editor who will remain nameless for participatingA reminder of our Jacks system5 JacksExcellent4 JacksVery Good3 JacksGood2 JacksFair1 JackPoor0 JacksWorse than thatamp160Up next Capsule reviews of other NewFront presentationsUntil next time stay well and stay tunedThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Media Village management or associated bloggers

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NewFront News and Views: Hulu's New Cable Party

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Simon Applebaum

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NewFront News and Views: Hulu's New Cable Party

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Simon Applebaum

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