# Financially, how does Hulu come out ahead by buying up Seinfeld **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 23, 2015, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financially-how-does-hulu-come-out-ahead-by-buying-up-seinfeld/723201 "2015-06-23T01:01:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financially-how-does-hulu-come-out-ahead-by-buying-up-seinfeld/723201/21 "2015-06-29T19:01:59Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I’d hope we as entertainment consumers reject the attempt and do better for ourselves, since there’s exactly zero reason to make an internet-based, fully on-demand model follow a “cable provider” model. I mean, I hope that too. I just don’t see any reason to think that it’s going to happen. There was never any reason for ESPN and the Disney kids channel to be sold as part of a single package except that Disney owns both and figured out it could maximize its profits that way. That reason still exists. What makes you think they’re going to change their sales model? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financially-how-does-hulu-come-out-ahead-by-buying-up-seinfeld/723201/22 "2015-06-29T19:05:42Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > I mean, I hope that too. I just don’t see any reason to think that it’s going to happen. > > There was never any reason for ESPN and the Disney kids channel to be sold as part of a single package except that Disney owns both and figured out it could maximize its profits that way. That reason still exists. What makes you think they’re going to change their sales model? Well, sloth and indifference will certainly let the new providers ape the profit-inflating model of the old system. I’d hope that cable cutters are informed and discriminating long enough to force such practices to the dimmer realms. (But that’s a small hope.) Things like ESPN and Disney having effectively zero overlap in audience are what make me hope people will rethink their choices, given the chance. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financially-how-does-hulu-come-out-ahead-by-buying-up-seinfeld/723201/23 "2015-06-29T19:36:51Z")
I think you might misunderstand the economic forces that lead to bundling. It’s not indifference, it’s efficiency and a better way to price discriminate/capture the economic surplus. The business pages and the comics have very little overlap in readership, but newspapers are very effective bundles. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financially-how-does-hulu-come-out-ahead-by-buying-up-seinfeld/723201/24 "2015-06-29T19:48:18Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > I think you might misunderstand the economic forces that lead to bundling. It’s not indifference, it’s efficiency and a better way to price discriminate/capture the economic surplus. I misunderstand none of it, and use a different dialectic to describe the practice. 🙂 > [@](#): > > The business pages and the comics have very little overlap in readership, but newspapers are very effective bundles. But that assumes the cable/print newspaper model; it would be more costly to offer the pieces separately. Even advanced digital cable is completely built around the “deliver it all and charge for what you can” model. An internet/on-demand model has no such functional basis and need not use the same bundled model. Will providers try, on a maximized-profit angle? Sure. Do subscribers gain anything from that? No. Not even as much as someone who only occasionally reads the funnies. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financially-how-does-hulu-come-out-ahead-by-buying-up-seinfeld/723201/25 "2015-06-29T21:02:32Z")
> [@Garula](#): > > Seems pretty unlikely. My impression is that typically only the more slapstick, broad foreign comedies successfully find a market in China/Japan. Friends was a bit of an aberration in China, but that had more to do with the lifestyle and social dynamics appealing to the new generation of young urbanites. I really can’t see OITNB or Seinfeld drawing in any significant amount of subscribers in those regions. It would be far, far more cost effective to buy up the rights to more local fare. I just today read an article about the difficulty of translating Seinfeld, largely because it’s humor relies on a lot of word play and cultural references: [What's the deal with translating Seinfeld - The Verge](http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/24/8809723/jerry-seinfeld-tv-show-international-translation) ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financially-how-does-hulu-come-out-ahead-by-buying-up-seinfeld/723201/26 "2015-06-29T21:25:11Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > But that assumes the cable/print newspaper model; it would be more costly to offer the pieces separately. It costs more to offer the Disney channel and ESPN as separate subscriptions over cable? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financially-how-does-hulu-come-out-ahead-by-buying-up-seinfeld/723201/27 "2015-06-29T21:32:53Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > It costs more to offer the Disney channel and ESPN as separate subscriptions over cable? Cost? No, not really. Yes in that the entire model, including some good part of the technical infrastructure, is set up to deliver everything in big chunks, just like a newspaper. A newspaper could be sold and delivered in a model where you only get the sections you read, and a cable service could sell you individual channels, but that all works against the profit model of selling the package. Until the latest generation of digital cable, it would have been more costly to break out channels and small channel groups on a per-subscriber basis. The internet-based model can be anything the providers want it to be, with almost none of the technical limitations of cable and profitability in even the most selective service. That they are trying to force it back into the “big bites” model does no one any good except providers who can’t see anything but the traditional profit model. Expect cable providers to allow more selectivity as they try to hold on to their market (or even survive, in the slightly longer run) as net-based providers try to go from the micro-choice model to bigger and fewer packages. The difference is that cable has to overcome a number of hurdles to change, whereas net has essentially unlimited flexibility but will tend towards maximum profit by playing on the usual consumer greed/ignorance/laziness. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financially-how-does-hulu-come-out-ahead-by-buying-up-seinfeld/723201/28 "2015-06-29T22:39:56Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > a cable service could sell you individual channels, but that all works against the profit model of selling the package. Until the latest generation of digital cable, it would have been more costly to break out channels and small channel groups on a per-subscriber basis. But when the technical limitations and additional costs went away, they didn’t change the way they sell TV. So, now that they’re still gone, what’s going to prompt the change? > [@](#): > > The internet-based model can be anything the providers want it to be, with almost none of the technical limitations of cable and profitability in even the most selective service. That they are trying to force it back into the “big bites” model does no one any good except providers who can’t see anything but the traditional profit model. I think it does more good than you think for subscribers. There’s a reason that people tend to subscribe to Netflix or Hulu or Cable rather than just buying each of their shows a la carte off of Amazon or Apple or something. If the removal of technological and cost barriers to more individualized entertainment sales was what was keeping things bundled, then I’d expect to see more individual options. But what we see is that the big players like Netflix and Hulu are selling _even bigger_ bundles. Netflix by itself has far more disparate content than any old-school cable bundle of a dozen channels had. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2015, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financially-how-does-hulu-come-out-ahead-by-buying-up-seinfeld/723201/29 "2015-06-30T00:23:07Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > But when the technical limitations and additional costs went away, they didn’t change the way they sell TV. So, now that they’re still gone, what’s going to prompt the change? Consumer awareness. (A thin rail, I know, but it’s the best goal I know of.) > [@](#): > > I think it does more good than you think for subscribers. There’s a reason that people tend to subscribe to Netflix or Hulu or Cable rather than just buying each of their shows a la carte off of Amazon or Apple or something. We do both. The break comes at “value”; Hulu in particular tends to have older, low-value programs and its newer stuff tends to be from partnering with tertiary channels like CW. Netflix rarely has serial TV episodes before the next season starts. We watch the “premium” shows one day delayed, from Vudu or Amazon, but we pay a much higher unit price for them. Or we wait out a season at a time. > [@](#): > > But what we see is that the big players like Netflix and Hulu are selling _even bigger_ bundles. Netflix by itself has far more disparate content than any old-school cable bundle of a dozen channels had. I still see it as a mismatched comparison: one provider with a vast library of shows is not the same as many discrete channels, each under the control of an independent programmer. Your view of “television” seems to be very monolithic, and the new situation is anything but - no matter how much the new providers are trying to milk the old model out of familiarity and assured profits. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financially-how-does-hulu-come-out-ahead-by-buying-up-seinfeld/723201.md?page=1)