Right after the news of the extraordinary ratings for the “Empire” season finale made its way around the Internet, Hulu announced that it “nabbed” exclusive streaming rights for all past and future episodes.
Of course, Hulu is controlled in large part to Twentieth Century Fox, so it obviously had the upper hand. But as Ross Miller over at The Verge points out, streaming rights battles have gotten pricey lately. Netflix won “Gotham” before it even came out and had a following.
“Empire” is a pretty big score for the SVOD. In addition to the episodes, Hulu’s also compiled all the music on their site. When you have exclusive rights, there are endless possibilities for keeping users around. With big, exclusive shows like “Empire,” maybe people will actually watch Hulu originals like “Hot Wives of Orlando” or “Moone Boy.” Maybe.
But soon we’ll have Apple TV. Henry Blodget blogged over at Yahoo today that:
By including some of the major networks, Apple will provide access to many of the games and events that today’s sports fans keep their cable TV subscriptions for. And Apple’s service will make these networks available even in geographic areas in which using an antenna to capture broadcast signals is impractical.
Blodget is right that Apple’s deal with networks could speed up the “demise of traditional tv.” But even then, I think we have a long while before the Hulu v.s. Netflix v.s. Amazon cocktail is just a memory. TV Everywhere has never been more accurate: it’s all over the place. And do we really want Apple to be the guy that brings it all together?