Hulu's Jason Kilar Talks About Plus, IPO, Renovations and More!
This week on BoomTown's grand summer tour of digital Los Angeles, I popped into the Santa Monica, Calif., offices of Hulu, the premium online video distributor that has been one of the few big and innovative hits for Hollywood in the digital sector.
Context & Ripple Effects
Hulu arrived in 2007 as one of the rare joint ventures between rival networks to actually work, earning a glowing hands-on review at launch for making premium TV freely streamable online. Three years on, BoomTown's visit to the Santa Monica offices frames the company at an inflection point: still cited as one of the few big digital hits Hollywood can claim, but now weighing how to monetize beyond ads.
In the interview, Kilar speaks openly about Hulu Plus, the subscription tier that moves the service past its all-free roots, while fielding — and notably not killing — questions about an initial public offering. The IPO chatter remains unconfirmed, but the fact that it is being discussed at all signals how far the network-owned distributor has traveled from experiment to standalone business.
First-order effects
- Kilar's confirmation of Hulu Plus makes the paid tier an explicit part of Hulu's strategy, adding a second revenue line alongside advertising for a service whose owners — the networks behind it — have been protective of their content economics.
- Publicly entertaining IPO questions puts a valuation spotlight on a company jointly held by competing media conglomerates, forcing each parent to articulate what Hulu is worth to them.
Second-order effects
- A public listing would compel the kind of financial disclosure a private joint venture avoids, exposing to investors exactly how much each network parent charges Hulu for content and where their interests diverge.
- Rivals in premium online video — from cable-backed TV Everywhere efforts to other ad-supported streamers — face pressure to match a free-plus-subscription pricing structure that undercuts pay-TV bundles.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, network-backed video JVs drift from defensive experiments toward independent public companies, with the structural tension being that their shareholders are also their suppliers.
- Hulu's move from free to hybrid monetization is an early test of whether audiences raised on free streaming will accept subscription tiers for TV they once got without paying.
The trend: Ad-supported online video distributors backed by legacy media are layering subscriptions and public-market ambitions onto services originally built as free network showcases.