Hulu for Germany?
November 28, 2011
Hulu’s SVP Johannes Larcher and consultant Olaf Kroll are currently talking to German TV networks to strike content deals for a launch in the country, according to a report by German news outlet Horizont.
Hulu started talking to potential partners in Europe years ago, but wasn’t actually able to follow through on any of its plans. Part of the problem was that TV networks preferred to launch their own catch-up platforms. However, these attempts haven’t always been successful: Regulators put a stop to plans by the two biggest commercial German TV entities RTL and ProSiebenSat.1 to launch their own catch-up site earlier this year, and the British Hulu lookalike SeeSaw recently shut down when a proposed acquisition fell through.
Hulu is said to have been struggling to acquire some of the rights necessary for a full-blown launch in Germany, which means it wouldn’t be launching “with the same offering” as in the US.
It’s possible that Hulu would approach the German market with a subscription-only offering, as it did when it expanded to Japan earlier this year.