WB chilly toward movies on Hulu

Posted by Chris

March 20, 2008

In a conversation with AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher, Warner Bros. SVP Jim Wuthrich said his studio would not be providing movies to Hulu.com any time soon despite the appearance of WB television programming there.

TV is one thing, Wuthrich says, and the site is great for showing off some shows and hopefully getting people to buy DVD sets. But it’s “too early” he says for people to be accepting of ad-supported movies.

I see his point in that ad-supported movies are far from the norm and, indeed, trying out such a model for movies has really only begun. But that doesn’t mean they can’t try. What have they got to lose? Especially if the ads weren’t interrupting the movie but instead consisted of pre- and post-roll spots along with banners and other formats surrounding the player.

Wuthrich’s comments come on the heel of numbers showing a significant portion of the online audience is anxious for online availability of movies and other long-form video content.

There’s certainly nothing saying online video ad models have to replicate those of television and other existing media. Indeed just about everything out there shows traditional models are just apt to honk people off when used online and are less effective.

It’s up to Warner and other studios to try this stuff out for themselves but I’m a fan of testing the viability of something new before dismissing it out of hand based on one person’s feeling of what the market will or won’t support.