Cable giant Time Warner, Inc. is interested in Hulu, which also means that the company is interested in Hulu’s content and how it is distributed to its millions of subscribers. Unfortunately, that interest might end up actually being bad for the subscribers. Currently, users who subscribe to Hulu are able to view a lot of TV shows just a short amount of time after they air on broadcast and cable networks. If negotiations between Time Warner and Hulu end up leading to Time Warner Inc. actually investing in the subscription streaming service, that could also end up being the end of same-day streaming on the service.
A new report from the Dow Jones Business News discusses the potential of Time Warner purchasing a 25% stake in Hulu. Investing in the company doesn’t seem so bad, right? Well it would be less bad for Hulu and more of a problem for Hulu’s users. If Time Warner invests a chunk of money in order to own a huge percentage of equity in the company, they’d also have a lot of room to throw some weight around, and that weight could mean making users wait and wait for network and cable-originated programs that are currently available as part of the service.
While Hulu has gotten into the original programming game, it isn’t as prominent in that market as Netflix and Amazon have been. Most of its value lies in users who really want access to cable or broadcast programs but who don’t want to pay the heavy fees. For a small percentage of the money the average cable purchaser shells out, Hulu’s audience can still catch shows as varied as The Flash or even newcomers like The Grinder, all from the comfort of devices as varied as tablets, TVs and computers. It’s been a pretty good deal for cord cutters. But it’s been a huge problem for cable p
