It’s always a bit odd to see a forward-thinking company make what appears to be a very backward move. Yet that’s exactly what Hulu is doing with this Friday with their commercial-free prime time. Friday, May 8th, from 4:00 pm PST to midnight, all shows on Hulu.com will be watchable sans commercials. Hulu says that this is brought to us by our wonderful benefactors at McDonalds, but this could be indicative of a plot to cut into regular television audiences.
Corporations have long been able to claim that putting their content on streaming services would not cannibalize their audiences, but that’s poised to change. This may be the first instance ever of Hulu targeting specific time blocks. As this event is spread out over eight hours, the question is not whether or not Hulu’s servers will run properly under load, but whether or not users of streaming services can be coaxed into watching content at specific times. The belief has always been that these are two distinct audiences, but depending on Friday’s results (and whether or not Hulu makes said results public), this old belief might end up in the rubbish bin along with the idea that that you had to watch shows on the cable company’s schedule.
