Netflix vs. Hulu.com

Streaming media is rapidly growing.  In the past 5 years many companies that offered traditional media have started branching out into the world of streaming media.  People still use these traditional sources but more options have been developed. 

A short time ago if someone wanted to catch their favorite TV show or movie they would have to watch it when it was on TV or in the Movie Theater.  Those days have been replaced with the Internets broadband speeds and a countless number of devices capable of streaming such media.  No longer are we tied to our homes or movie theaters.  We have companies like Netflix.com and Hulu.com to come to our aid.

Hulu is a company specializing in streaming television shows.  On hulu.com you can catch a variety of TV shows from networks such as NBC, Fox, ABC and CBS just to name a few. This has been a revolutionary thing.  Hulu is a joint venture from these networks with money coming from Newport Television which is a joint venture company created by the network partners. Hulu.com , because of it’s affiliation with these networks, provides a service offering it’s customers to receive  video content in High Definition for a monthly subscription fee.  It is the holder of a countless number of video assets and it increases them each night.  The networks provide viewers with full streaming versions of the same programs that aired over the traditional video feed as recently as the night before.

Netflix originally got it start by offering video rentals to it’s subscribers for a flat monthly rate.  They also gave their customers the added benefit of not having to return their movie rentals without having to pay a penalty charge for returning them late.  This is the assassin of the business model of companies like Blockbuster video.  Netflix has also begun streaming their vast library of movies and specials over the Internet.  This puts them in direct competition with Hulu.  The difference being that Netflix has more movie titles than Hulu.  Netflix generally gets the movies first and Hulu has more television content to offer it’s subscribers.