Hulu Hullabaloo

As a rather devoted TV and movie watcher, how can I not love a site like Hulu? Full episodes of TV shows, feature-length movies and movie trailers — all for free. And then I heard the horrible, horrible news. It wouldn't be free for long. Nooooooo!

According to a Macworld article a few weeks ago, Chase Carey, an executive at News Corp., suggested Hulu might begin charging in 2010. Not good.

Then, a week later, Entertainment Weekly's Web site basically reported, "Hey, wait just a darn minute." According to EW.com, a source close to Hulu told them that "the site remains steadfastly committed to free content" and that "any possible subscription or pay-per-view service has no set timeline and would only build upon what Hulu offers, not replace it."

Is that a collective sigh I just heard across the Internet? I mean, naturally, they're going to try and find ways to make some dough, what with it being a business and all. At the same time, they also know that people expect stuff for free online (we can't help ourselves), so the company will probably do its best to find a middle ground — until profits dip and their survival is at risk. Then, all bets are off.

And this week, according to this CNET blog post, Hulu debuted Coming Soon, which lets users know when new episodes will be posted on the site. You can also sign up for e-mail reminders of when your favorite shows are up.

So, bad news averted for the time being and a sprinkling of good news. Now, I'll continue to think really good thoughts and hope that pay cable channels will start to put their older shows up on Hulu, so I can finally watch, say, "The Wire" and "Deadwood." That's right, HBO, I'm talking to you. (And, yes, I am an idealist.)

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