Hulu selling Japan business to Nippon TV

The beginning of the end of HULU here in Japan Nippon TV, will be streaming yomiuri giants matches. Thank god I just unsubscribed this week.

unfortunately, hulu couldn't get pass the protectionist nature of japanese tv. they weren't allowed to show recent US programs or movies, which made the service worthless.

How fortuitous that I've figured out how to stream from Hulu US recently. Thank you, No. If I wanted to see more Japanese programming, I'd actually watch Japanese TV.

Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins says Hulu had grown to a point where it believed the best path forward was to sell its Japan business to a strategic buyer.

Corporate spin at its best.

The problem was that everything they showed was so damn old and not up to date. If they could get the same releases as the US Hulu, I would gladly pay.

Roughneck, have you seen Hulu Japan? It's almost all Japanese stuff. A bunch of useless, boring, old content. Even the few shows I was interested in seeing were not even in English. They were American shows with NO English subtitles or spoken English.

So....would people in the US be able to watch NTV programs? Aaaand dramas?

Worst product ever. Yah, "It had grown to a point" where no one wanted to subscribe and the subscribers we had were dropping us like a hot knife (is what he meant). The content was extremely thin and half of the things that i would occasionally actually find that I wanted to see, WERE IN JAPANESE ONLY! An American movie/TV show with NO ENGLISH! NO subtitles, NO spoken English. dropped them fast.

It's over, Hulu was okay because it had some access foreign movies, can see Hulu turning 90% domestic now.

Funny, few days ago there was a news (sounded more like infomercial) on JT on we were commenting on how bad was Hulu Japan when comparing it to Hulu Plus in US.

After ending my subscription I wondered if we would get better service in the future, new shows (no, Magnum P.I. or Murder, She wrote are not new) now I know it will get even worst. Nippon TV will kill Hulu Japan, massive foodies TV shows (oishii!!!). They will let it die and blame it on the bad concept.

Nippon TV wants to keep brainwashing people with same programs that they have been broadcasting for decades. How long before they close the service?

Netflix you are being warned! No one will let you come here! Stay away or you will lose big and end up selling Netflix Japan to Fuji TV.

With all the licensing issues, can't say I blame Hulu for selling it's Japanese franchise. It was pretty terrible anyway.

It"a me - how did you do that? I have a ps3 also and couldn't get hulu to work at all. I would gladly pay for hulu US if I could get it to work here. Wowow isn't bad these days, by the way. Yes, their shows are fairly old, but at least they are in English. I've been in Japan for almost twenty years, so old show or not, I'll take what I can get. I don't dislike Japanese TV, per se, but given the option to watch TV from the states, US TV wins hands down.

Hulu appli was an automatic option/update under video menu? Free samples are available without subscribing or using the 2 week trial.

This was hulu Japan though.

I tried Hulu on my PS3 and could get all overseas programs with their original soundtracks, just needed to choose the correct setting.

Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins says Hulu had grown to a point where it believed the best path forward was to sell its Japan business to a strategic buyer.

Yeah, right... They probably got tired of trying to navigate the Japanese business climate.

Probably good for them. They can focus on other markets and leave Japan to its fate. One thing is for aure, though: with Nippon Terebi taking over the helm, Hulu will go down the drain quickly. I suspect Hulu will disappear from the Japanese market very soon.

i lost interest after "grown to a point where..."

Err Hulu has not been updated in 3 years. Was glad i got out early!

I don't have hulu, but do they have many japanese programs? I might subscribe then.

The problem is, no matter how much "interest" Japanese people show in western shows, it will never become mainstream here, because the 2 societies are so different. So, even if someone would watch 24, few seasons, they will not devour all the shows that come out of the US channels. So, if you want to do a business like Hulu and Netflix, you need to have Japanese contents as well.