ABC content starts arriving on Hulu

It's here, sort of. Several months after the big announcement that content from Disney's ABC Entertainment division would be coming to Hulu, the entertainment conglomerate's shows have started arriving.

The primetime drama "Grey's Anatomy" debuted on the video hub Monday, and more shows will roll out over the next two weeks.

These include, according to Hulu, consistent hits like "Desperate Housewives" and "Scrubs," along with more recent additions to the network such as "I Survived A Japanese Game Show."

Disney joined Hulu in April, giving it a joint stake in the company alongside NBC Universal, News Corp., and investor Providence Equity Partners. Shows from ABC as well as ABC-owned cable channels like SoapNet and ABC Family are on the way, along with movies from Disney (though no titles have been made available yet).

Would-be Hulu rival Joost closed its consumer video service last month after its peer-to-peer technology failed to make up for its tepid content offering.

My big question: When will we see episodes of my favorite ABC show, "Lost," on Hulu? I've e-mailed a company representative to find out.

[jwchen]

Been trying to catch up with Lost for the past three weekends (from the beginning). But have to suffer through ABC's blurry as hell "HD" online videos. Can't wait until they move Lost to Hulu.

[karpenterskids]

I've been catching up on Lost as well (aka starting from season 1)...and the ABC HD feature looks great on my 13 inch Macbook screen!

Maybe it looks worse on bigger screens, though.

And yeah! The instant Lost...and maybe Wipeout...(the only other ABC show I watch) come to Hulu, I'll definitely be watching them on there. One-stop shopping is ALWAYS better.

[jelybely8]

Hmm, that's odd...I've watched multiple episodes of Lost in HD on the ABC site, and never had a problem with quality, either on my laptop or outputting to an HDTV via HDMI.

[Spanwite]

I tried to watch "Wipeout" on Hulu with redirected to ABC. I saw the Commercial before the show that's it after it is just loading and loading!
Then I used a different Browser (IE8) same thing, I guess I have to wait until the show is really on Hulu.
I don't have anywhere else Problem, just on ABC.

[tvsadowski]

What I want to know is when CBS will join Hulu and when it will start offering more than the anemic selection on its own website? I would love to watch full episodes of The Big Bang Theory on Hulu, after all shouldn't a show about geeks, be offered to geeks in a geeky method like Hulu?!?

[mearsfan42]

Two things... the reason "The Big Bang Theory" isn't available for streaming online isn't CBS's fault, it's because it is owned by "warner brother television" and they don't put any of their CBS shows online to stream. You'll notice "the mentalist" "Cold Case" and "old christine" among others are not online.
As far as CBS being on HULU, CBS has said they prefer the approach that they have taken with making their shows available on a wide range of websites, ie, TV.com, CBS.com, Video.aol.com, and Netflix, as well as a lot of other sites that i dont know about. It's called the CBS Audience Networks.. check it out here: http://www.cbs.com/can_player/partners.php
hope this helps!

[Smallville2009]

CBS is very controlling of their brands and of their holdings so in other words we will probably not be seeing shows like "Big Bang Theory" or "Ghost Whisperer" or "How I Met Your Mother on Hulu anytime soon.

[mearsfan42]

CBS isn't the one that's controlling...if you'll notice all the shows that CBS owns and produces(all the CSI's, Numbers, NCIS) are all online.... the others aren't owned by CBS and their owners won't allow them to be streamed... Big Bang(warner bros) Ghost Whisperer(ABC) How I Met Your Mother(20th Century Fox)...
I don't see what the big deal with wanting CBS content on HULU is anyway... if you want to watch a CBS show thats viewable online you can go to tv.com, Aol Video, or CBS.com...or if you have a netflix account you can watch CBS shows Commercial free with netflix "Watch Now' beginning the day after they originally air.

[compbry15]

Yea, keep us updated on whether Lost will show up on Hulu.

I cannot stand ABC's "Click To Continue" advertising program on their online player. Nothing more mood-breaking than having to get up to click a button every 10 minutes (we have a couch nearby and normally sit on that when we watch shows online).

[davidlants]

There is an option for "Auto continue after ad-break" in the settings dialog where you can turn this "feature" off.

[karpenterskids]

I get annoyed by that as well!

The only thing I like about ABC's ad system is that sometimes they include games...oh, and you can usually pause the ad, and start watching videos somewhere else, if you want to shave 30 seconds off of your day.

Other than that, though, Hulu is far superior.

[w0rdwarri0r]

Hulu is the ultimate tease. It's available only to the U.S., but seems to reel you in until you try to play the video, at which point it tells you that it's "not available in your region".

This is the internet, for God's sake. Not to blame the people running Hulu, but the content providers for the shows themselves have strange ideas about how to run a business. You'd think Big Content would be smart enough not to drive non-U.S. customers to piracy. Instead, they're hung up negotiating agreements on a nation-by-nation basis for some region.

Jeez, you'd think that they'd at least bring Canada on board, a country with an economy very tightly integrated with the U.S. and a viewing audience with very similar tastes to the U.S. (although we have the Royal Canadian Air Farce and Rick Mercer).

[ncalishome]

They're working on it: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/11/hulu-working-on-international-streaming-canada-uk-australia-up-first/

[Knightro2]

Like ncalishome stated....they are working on it.
What you have to remember is the different permissions Hulu must obtain in order to broadcast outside the US.
Then you have to think of advertising...how they make their money. They'd need to have local (meaning to the country) advertisements in place as well.

[shiji151]

Have you tried using a proxy server? Foxyproxy works well for me.

[j1p9m5d2]

I guess I am happy for fans of ABC who will have a place to go to quench their thirst for Grey's A. episodes. However, I would be more pleased with an announcement from HULU that it had gotten-off-its-rear and successfully concluded arrangements to allow folks in Canada , Britain, etc. to access their site.

[abcd9009]

@j1p9m5d2

It's not HULU that you need to be blaming. Blame those greedy Content Providers who don't want their programs to be available outside US (at least for now).

[akbisw]

Lost on ABC HD looks amazing. It depends on your connection. I looked great on my hd tv. Hd works only if you have more than 8mbps connection. Or else it will be old youtube quality.

[elmastero1]

I just want to know if HULU is planning on coming out with an app for the Iphone/Ipod Touch.

[Jordan_G]

FROM HULU's FAQ page:
http://www.hulu.com/about/media_faq

Pending regulatory review and approval, Disney will share current television shows and clips from ABC.com, ABCFamily.com and SOAPnet.com, as well as archived programs and features.
Following the approval of the regulatory review, content available to Hulu users will include:

Full-length episodes of ABC primetime programs like Lost, Grey?s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Samantha Who, Scrubs, Private Practice and popular late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live

[huludude]

I was browsing around for alternate ways to watch hulu. It looks like the only decent way to do it, is to purchase a private VPN account. I highly doubt hulu can ban them all. I purchased mine from www.hidemynet.com , they provide UK and US servers currently, so I can also login to the UK server to access online video offered in the UK :). Like, Iplayer, Channel 4 on demand, bbc, etc. And it's only 5$/month, beats having to deal with the hassles of using hotspot shield (which is now banned anyway).