Hulu

Hulu, which attracted 31 million unique users in March under a free-for-all model, is taking its first steps to change to a model where viewers will have to prove they are a pay-TV customer to watch their favorite shows, according to sources. In fact, the move by Hulu toward the new model — called authentication because viewers would have to log in with their cable or satellite TV account number — was behind the move last week by Providence Equity Partners to cash out of Hulu after five years, these sources said.

Hulu.com owners Walt Disney Co., Comcast and News Corp. are close to buying out Providence Equity Partners’ stake at a price valuing the company at about $2 billion, said two people with knowledge of the matter. Providence is selling its 10% of Hulu for about $200 million after investing $100 million when the venture began in 2007, according to the people, who weren’t authorized to talk publicly.

As the audience for free television fades, federal regulators are wrestling over the future of the government-mandated broadcasts, which were originally intended to knit the nation’s disparate communities together.

Web video company Hulu is asking a court to dismiss a privacy lawsuit stemming from the company’s involvement with analytics company KISSmetrics, which allegedly used “supercookies” to track people. Hulu says that the consumers who filed suit can’t show they were injured by the alleged tracking.

The video website reports $420 million in revenue last year, but it is spending even more to develop new shows, including projects from Adrian Grenier, Michael Wendschuh, Seth Meyers and Richard Linklater.

As Hulu looks to appeal to more advertisers, the company will begin charging advertisers only for spots that run in their entirety. If a viewer does the equivalent of using a DVR online and skips a portion of an ad, the marketer will not have to pay.

Hulu will promote its original programming to advertisers this week in the annual ritual known as upfronts that is typically reserved for cable channels and network broadcasters.

Morgan Spurlock’s documentary series A Day In The Life will be the first Hulu original project that Fremantle will take to international markets with a focus on selling the content to traditional media platforms.

Five days before Super Bowl XLVI, the lineup of advertisers is being firmed up with the news on Tuesday that the video-streaming site Hulu will be buying commercial time.

Hulu has bought its first original scripted series and added its second original unscripted series, as the biggest players in online video escalate their arms race.

ComScore’s Video Metrix reported that Hulu’s audience had grown to 31.3 million unique viewers in November, up from 29.2 million in October and 27.1 million in September, as well as a 23% rise over the same time last year.

You wouldn’t know that the Hulu auction was a failure based on the way News Corp COO Chase Carey describes the owners’ plans. They decided to hang on to the digital video service because its value to them “dwarfed some of the values that were being put on it” by bidders including Dish Network and Google.

Surburgatory and The Middle are among the offerings that will be on Hulu and ABC.com.

Cable companies are still losing TV subscribers. But online services aren’t the culprit. Continued competition and a slowing economy are likely to blame.

Available later this year, programming on Hulu and Hulu Plus will begin with the nine series on  CW’s fall 2011 schedule: new series Ringer, Hart of Dixie and The Secret Circle, as well as returning hits The Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl, Supernatural, Nikita, 90210 and America’s Next Top Model.

Fox has added two new operators to its effort placing a soft paywall around online streaming of shows, such as Glee and The Simpsons. Mediacom and Verizon FiOS customers can view episodes the day after air, so long as they log in and prove they are paying subscribers.

Hulu LLC’s owners may reconsider an initial public offering of the online video-streaming website after deciding to cancel an auction. A share sale would let Hulu, owned by News Corp., Walt Disney Co. and Providence Equity Partners, raise capital to add content and help retain senior management, said Laura Martin, a Needham & Co. analyst in Pasadena, Calif.

The Walt Disney Co., News Corp., Comcast Corp. and Providence Equity Partners had been shopping the site for several months and technology companies from Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. to Dish Network Corp. had come knocking. But the owners said in a joint statement that Hulu “holds a unique and compelling strategic value to each of its owners.”

Internet giant Yahoo has decided to withdraw from the bidding process for Hulu, the video site owned by News Corp., Walt Disney Co., Comcast Corp. and private-equity firm Providence Equity Partners, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Yahoo had made the initial approach to Hulu, sparking the sale process. WSJ subscribers can read the full report here.

Hulu entered into a multi-year content agreement with Univison today that gives Hulu a way to sell advertising to a growing Hispanic population and entice them to pay for subscriptions that unlock more content. Univision gets a chance to make the kind of money from reruns that English-language programs have long enjoyed. Hulu  subscribers will get the majority of Univision’s primetime offerings the day after airing on regular TV.

Second-round bids for the streaming start-up Hulu are due this week, but a sale looks less and less likely as the owners debate demands for conditions around the bids, according to individuals knowledgeable about the auction.

Online video service Hulu, which has been put up for sale by its joint owners, now has more than 1 million paying subscribers, CEO Jason Kilar said on Wednesday.

CBS has broken its standoff with Hulu by providing some shows to the video site’s service in Japan. But don’t expect that to mean a thaw with Hulu in the U.S., where CBS wants big-money rights fees to distribute content online, according to CBS Interactive president Jim Lanzone, who said the site would only damage the network’s brand in the U.S.

A new TV viewing study from media and marketing consultant Altman Vilandrie & Co. and online survey firm Research Now has found that just one-third of young adults 18-34 in the U.S. now watch TV shows during their normal broadcast time on a regular basis.

CBS Corp. and Hulu signed a multi-year, non-exclusive licensing agreement that will let certain CBS TV shows to be streamed instantly by subscribers to Hulu’s new subscription-only service in Japan. […]

Now the deadline for companies to make a bid in the auction for Hulu is Friday, with Yahoo, Google and Amazon among those looking closely at the online streaming video service owned by News Corp, Disney, Comcast and Providence Equity Partners.

As the owners of Hulu prepare to receive initial bids today, at least one Wall Street analyst argues that it would be “a mistake of epic proportions” to dispose of the Internet television pioneer just as the service is gaining momentum.

With first bids for online video provider Hulu believed to be due late this week, there is a slew of open questions about the auction, including: Will Google be involved? And will all current owners end up selling their respective stakes or will some hold on to them?

Hulu takes a cautious step into original content today with the premiere of filmmaker Morgan Spurlock’s A Day in the Life, a six-episode documentary series that follows a notable person around for 24 hours.

Would-be buyers are expected to offer up their initial bids for video service Hulu by the end of next week, according to people familiar with the company.

As Hulu and Netflix continue to square off, it’s important to note key behavioral differences between their respective audiences. According to new research from Nielsen, the vast majority of Hulu viewers get their video fixes via computer, while far fewer Netflix users rely on their “small screens.”