Fox Kidnaps Itself
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Fox Kidnaps Itself
By snatching Arrested Development from Hulu, the network has shown the limits of online video.
Posted Monday, October 12, 2009 - 1:41pm
On Sept. 11, the third season of Arrested Development went missing from Hulu.com, the popular TV-on-demand Web site. On Oct. 9, the second season followed suit. The kidnapper warned us in advance. A bulletin was posted as a heads-up, confirming that the kidnapping was premeditated.
After Sept. 11, Season 3 episodes will no longer be available for online streaming. After Oct. 9, Season 2 episodes will no longer be available for online streaming. Season 1 episodes will continue to be available on Hulu.
The removal of the pun-riddled family comedy—one of Hulu’s marquee and most successful shows—is mysterious, but it’s not a whodunit. Hulu pulled the trigger, but it was Fox that commanded it. Hulu had no choice but to follow the order. Fox owns 32 percent of Hulu and is the producer and distributor of Arrested. Even though the show ran on Hulu, Fox was the one controlling Arrested’s fate. The removal of this one show is not an unimportant incident. It has plenty to tell us about the realities—and limitations—of the online media model.
There’s precedent for this kind of disappearance. In the beginning of 2009, Hulu removed almost three full seasons of FX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia without any warning. (FX is closely related to Fox, as both are children of Rupert Murdoch.) After an outcry of disapproval, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar entered the fray and apologized. He also offered this clarification:
We did this at the request of the content owner. Despite Hulu’s opinion and position on such content removals (which we share liberally with all of our content partners), these things do happen and will continue to happen on the Hulu service with regards to some television series.
A Hulu spokesperson told me it was the same situation for Arrested Development. Hulu routinely removes content from its site, of course. Most current shows only have five episodes up at a time, with the oldest one rotating offsite once a new one comes in. But this is different; this is the elimination of a show that hasn’t aired new episodes since 2006 and has always been a part of Hulu’s repertoire. When the site first launched in 2008, Arrested was a major bragging point.
Still from Arrested Development © FOX.
Comments
Seriously?
The seven people that watched this crap show haven't already seen all the episodes at least 5 times each? Really who cares - you're denying Fox the rights to try and make back some of the money they dumbly invested in this turkey via DVD sales? You 7 fans ought to be kissing their butt that they ever made the show in the first place and allowed it to stay on as long as they did given the ratings were some of the worst ever for a network show.
They just don't get it...
I think I speak for a lot of people when I say I will NEVER pay for a DVD of a TV show. It's not because I'm opposed to paying for content. Truth is my income is indirectly tied to content creation so I want to see more content being made and that does cost quite a bit of money. The reason I don't buy DVDs is more a practical matter: what the hell am I supposed to do with all those discs??? Unlike the media executives, not all of us have huge living rooms with endless amounts of shelf space. I don't want to turn over a wall of shelves to store a bunch of DVDs. I also don't want to have to get up, get the disc, and put the disc in the DVD player every time I want to watch a 30 minute TV show. That's the beauty of on-line media. No storage hassles and one click convenience. For many of us it's all about convenience.