I got a tweed this morning.

Hulu coming to Canada, say sources. From Cartt.ca:

Unfortunately you can't access the link(subscription based) but at least it's a step in the right direction.:)

posts removed:

Cartt is a subscription based so please don't paste the link as its of no use.

I guess my first read was free- and now that is gone.

The gist of the article was that the networks owned the original rights to the show and they could block internet content for Canadian TV rights holders. Also Hulu could give Cancon a larger audience.

So it would be a Hulu Canada NOT Hulu.

Will it carry the same content as Hulu in the US?

Didn't think so.

It would have to be hulu.ca since most of the major shows on Hulu would be owned here in Canada by CTV, Rogers or Cannwest.

But frankly, it would still be better than what we have today.

I was able to read the article at cartt.ca and I don't have a sub. In a nut shell, Hulu wants the canadian market and may go as far as opening hulu.com to Canadians and preventing the Canadian rights owners (ctv, global etc) from placing certain shows on their network portals thus forcing canadian's to head to Hulu to watch the show.

I was able to read the article at cartt.ca and I don't have a sub. In a nut shell, Hulu wants the canadian market and may go as far as opening hulu.com to Canadians and preventing the Canadian rights owners (ctv, global etc) from placing certain shows on their network portals thus forcing canadian's to head to Hulu to watch the show.
How would they block the networks from showing their own shows online? :confused:

@rlongfield:

I sincerely hope you're right about this. I am so sick and tired of the so-called Canadian "networks" jerking us around with content.

Hulu.com all the way! And while we're at it, let's get access to Netflix, too!

I was able to read the article at cartt.ca and I don't have a sub. In a nut shell, Hulu wants the canadian market and may go as far as opening hulu.com to Canadians and preventing the Canadian rights owners (ctv, global etc) from placing certain shows on their network portals thus forcing canadian's to head to Hulu to watch the show.To carry on what Anteater is saying - how can Hulu do this? The US TV networks sell the Canadian rights to their TV shows to Canadian networks. Presumably those rights include Canadian online distribution as well as Canadian TV network distribution. Hulu has no say over the matter.

Hulu is mainly owned by some of the owners of the TV networks (NBC Universal, Fox, Disney) so if you are saying that the US TV networks want to retain Canadian (or for that matter global) online distribution rights then that is possible but that is a little bit different from saying that Hulu is preventing Canadian networks from posting shows on the networks' sites.

Hulu is mainly owned by some of the owners of the TV networks (NBC Universal, Fox, Disney) so if you are saying that the US TV networks want to retain Canadian (or for that matter global) online distribution rights then that is possible

From how I'm reading this, that's exactly what they're threatening to do. If the Canadian networks can't work out a deal with Hulu, then they'd take all NBC/Fox/ABC programs off the CTV and Global sites once their existing contracts are up and then open up Hulu to Canadians.

If this is all true, Hulu really has CTV/Global over a barrel.

Networks don't own the rights to television shows. Producers own the rights to television shows.

U.S. Networks buy the U.S. rights from the producers, Canadian Networks buy the Canadian rights from the producers, European networks buy the European rights from the producers, Australian networks buy the Australian rights from the producers and so on.

Canadian networks don't buy the rights from U.S. Networks.

That may be true, but in most cases these days producer and network are one and the same. (ABC=Touchstone, NBC=Universal, etc).

Only major exception I can think of is Warner Brothers.

And it is not uncommon for a studio owned by NBC to sell productions to other networks.

The point is that if U.S. Networks try to make money off of shows outside of the area for which they have bought rights then they will likely be sued by the producer and the producer will likely be sued by the people who bought the rights outside of the U.S.

Now if the producers sell the U.S. Networks North American rights then presumably Hulu would be able to offer it to Canadians without any problems.

If this is all true, Hulu really has CTV/Global over a barrel.That's only true if Hulu/online viewing of shows starts eating into TV viewership which I don't think has happened too a large extent yet, at least not in Canada. But if this were the case it makes having to pay for local TV stations more ridiculous as there will be two ways to get shows for free (assuming that Hulu is still free/d supported) - via OTA and via Hulu.

The Canadian networks had a chance to offer something similar but they are too afraid of new things.

If they had wanted to offer HD streams of their shows on their websites they could have potentially charged a small fee for access (say 1-5/month).

They could have even gotten together beforehand and started a joint venture like hulu.

But then again it is the Canadian broadcasting sector and they seem to hate new things.

I use a VPN service and connect to a US server. No problem accessing everything on Hulu. Only pay $5 a month for the service.

All canadians can get hulu for free,in fact my g/f watches it all the time,she likes the old comedies there like bewitched and beverly hillbillies.Just go to hotspotshield.com and download it,then when u go to hulu,they think u have an american address! Its great,and its free.

Going through proxies and VPNs do not count IMHO.

I will stop short of calling acessing Hulu and other such services through such illegal, although doing so supposedly violates copyright agreements.

Having Hulu legally allow Canadians will be a game changer to a degree.

Any updates on this?