Video streaming site Hulu finally may be ready to dive into full-on Internet TV.
Hulu, which is co-owned by the parent companies of three U.S. broadcasters, is working on a subscription service that would add feeds of live broadcast and cable TV channels to its current Netflix-like catalog of video-on-demand shows and movies, the Wall Street Journal reported late Sunday.
Disney and 21st Century Fox, two of Hulu’s owners alongside Comcast, are near agreements to license many of their channels to the platform. WSJ reported Disney is offering ABC and ESPN, while Fox will include its broadcast network, Fox news, FX, and national and regional sports channels.
The service may launch by the beginning of next year, but a price isn’t set, although the article reported it is expected to be around $40 a month.
Hulu has long been crimped by its parentage from throwing itself headlong into becoming an online site for television. Its ownership by some of the biggest television companies — which are also all competitors against each other — meant Hulu walked a tightrope whenever it approached emerging standards of digital TV, since so many conflict with lucrative, long-held business practices for traditional programmers.
One such legacy model is bundling, which is when programmers clump together smaller networks with their must-have channels and selling the content as a whole package to traditional distributors like cable and satellite companies. But online TV options have won ground offering “skinny” bundles that have fewer, selective channels for a lower price.
With the reported new offering, Hulu would essentially be offering skinny bundles of its own for the first time.
Analysts were split on repercussions from the possible move.
Bernstein’s Todd Juenger said the move could amount to Hulu’s parents declaring war on their distribution partners like cable and satellite, while the pricing growth from a “skinny Hulu” would be much lower. As part of a no-contract package on Hulu, networks would gain and then lose subscribers at an unprecendented level, since online TV terms make it much easier to join up and then quit than cable and satellite contracts allow.
However, Steven Cahall at RBC Capital Markets noted the important takeaway from the news is that it indicates a way for programmers “to take more control of their destiny” as the pay-TV industry fragments into a myriad of providers.
10 'Game of Thrones' Characters Most and Least Likely to Die, According to Science (Photos)
So, did Jon Snow really die in "Game of Thrones" season finale? Did Sansa survive her leap from Winterfell's wall? Before Sunday's return of the series starts unraveling those mysteries, researchers at a German university say their algorithm knows the answers. A student team at the Technical University of Munich analyzed data on all the "Game of Thrones" characters and built a machine-learning program that gives each one a percentage chance of survival or doom. Who is the most and least likely to die next?
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This boy king is virtually dead already. Tommen Baratheon has a 97 percent likelihood of dying, according to the algorithm. Considering his grandfather, father, older brother and sister have all been murdered, and basically every person with any power in Westeros is vying to steal his seat on the Iron Throne, this doom may not be the biggest surprise.
Tommen's uncle, Stannis, is a close runner-up in the algorithm's ranking of who's next to die. He has a 96 percent chance of being offed. Of course, our last glimpse of Stannis was of him lying defenseless on the ground as Brienne of Tarth swung her sword at him for the kill, so...
It doesn't look good for fan favorite Khaleesi. Daenerys Targaryen has a 95 percent of dying, putting her at No. 3 in the close race to the grave.
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Davos Seaworth, Stannis Baratheon's once right-hand deputy, has a 91 percent chance of doom. After barely surviving the battle at King's Landing in Season 2, this Onion Knight may not have long left.
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Petyr Baelish's cunning vaulted him to money and power, and it's saved him from more than one dire scrape. But he has a 91 percent likelihood of dying, according to the algorithm, so his wiles may not get him much farther.
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Among those most likely to survive, Roose Bolton is No. 5 on the "might just make it" list. And even though he makes it into that elusive top 5, he still has a 28 percent likelihood of dying.
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Margaery Tyrell's fate is rosier than her young husband, Tommen, at a 64 percent likelihood of dying. Her father, though, has the best chances in the Tyrell family, at only 18 percent doomed.
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Most people love to hate Cersei Lannister, but her conniving ways earn her a solid chance of surviving. She is only 16 percent likely to die, putting her at No. 3 on the list of survivors.
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Bless the all-knowing algorithm! Jon Snow is alive! At least, there's only an 11 percent chance that the Night's Watch mutiny that left him bleeding in the snow actually killed him. Only one other character has a better likelihood of survival.
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Place your bets now. Although she jumped from the heights of Winterfell's high wall in the finale of the last season, machine learning assures us Sansa is the most likely character of all to survive the "Song of Ice and Fire." She her likelihood of death is only 3 percent.
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Is Jon Snow dead or alive? A machine-learning algorithm pegs the percentage chance of every “Game of Thrones” character surviving or perishing
So, did Jon Snow really die in "Game of Thrones" season finale? Did Sansa survive her leap from Winterfell's wall? Before Sunday's return of the series starts unraveling those mysteries, researchers at a German university say their algorithm knows the answers. A student team at the Technical University of Munich analyzed data on all the "Game of Thrones" characters and built a machine-learning program that gives each one a percentage chance of survival or doom. Who is the most and least likely to die next?