Reasons why it sucks that Hulu is dropping Comedy Central programming

For those of us who primarily watch the ‘Colbert Report’ and the ‘Daily Show’ on Hulu, today is a sad day. Hulu’s Senior VP of Content and Distrubution, Andy Forssell, made an announcement on the Hulu blog that as of next Tuesday, March 9, Hulu will not be carrying any Comedy Central shows. Now, granted, people in the US can continue to watch both clips and full versions of shows on ColbertNation.com and TheDailyShow.com. But for months now, virtually the only whole shows that I would watch of the ‘Colbert Report’ were on Hulu. And I have to be honest – I’m a bit peeved about this decision.

But why, you may ask, would this rub me the wrong way so much if I have access to the show via the official sites? Well, let me tell you. Are my reasons selfish? You betcha. Am I being whiny? Yeah, probably. But I got something to say! Which leads me to my first reason …

1) No more free ‘Strangers With Candy’

On occasion, I want to do a screencap of ‘Strangers With Candy’ for the site, or maybe just sit down and have a mini-marathon of some of my favorite SWC episodes. Now, I have the DVD’s, but sometimes, it’s nice to just be able to watch the shows on the computer. Plus it also allowed us to embed relevant clips here on No Fact Zone as the need would arise. Well, we can say goodbye to the pole and the hole … no more full episodes of one of my very favorite Stephen Colbert projects.

2) The viewing experience is smoother and the ads more relevant on Hulu than on ColbertNation.com

Trust me when I say I have watched a lot of videos, both full episodes and segment clips, on Hulu and ColbertNation.com. And I choose Hulu 95% of the time. The only time I ever watch full episodes on ColbertNation.com is when I want a particularly large screencap. The main reason for this is the ads.

Now, I’m not adverse to ads. People have to pay the bills, and I can respect that. But Hulu gives me multiple options for viewing ads, and once I’ve seen an ad for a particular segment of the show, I can watch that segment repeatedly without being bombarded with ads. Each break comes with a different ad, and sometimes I am even given the option of watching a full 2 minute ad and then the entire show is ad free. This is an excellent opportunity, and I really like it when the ads are movies because I actually enjoy watching the trailers.

With Comedy Central.com, I have to watch 3-4 ads before I can watch any part of the show. But let’s say I want to skip to the interview. I am forced to watch 2 minutes of ads, and often it’s the same ad over and over and over and over and over, before I ever get to any content. If I decide to rewind and go from the third section to the first, I have to watch another ad, and sometimes even two. The pause feature isn’t nearly as smooth, and it’s just a much more frustrating experience.

I know I might be an exception to how a normal user might use the site. I think I can safely say that when it comes to the ColbertNation.com videos, I’m a bit of a power user. But if I’m having this much trouble, surely others who watch the video are having the same issues.

3) Hulu gives the option of embedding only a small segment of a video.

I absolutely LOVE this feature! If I want to embed a part of the show – say, a musical number, or a snippet of dialogue – Hulu allows me to pick the exact snippet of the full episode that I want to embed, and put parameters in the code to install the code. I can also designate what size I want the Hulu video to be through a simple HTML adjustment, to best fit within the parameters of the body of the blog (although the default 512px width is a good size anyway). With the ColbertNation.com videos, I cannot embed the whole episode, and the sections of the show only allow a certain parameter of viewing experience – it tells you the size of the segment, the frame (with ads for other Comedy Central projects), and another aspect of Comedy Central videos that I simply cannot stand …

4) ColbertNation.com embed code screws up my LiveJournal feed.

About 10% of my syndicated site readers are LiveJournal users. Many of what I would call the Power User Zoners read the site via LiveJournal. But when the RSS feed syndicates code from an official Comedy Central video, LiveJournal simply cannot read the code. The Hulu video embeds lovely in any RSS feed or browser where it appears.

5) This is going to totally hose my morning schedule.

I warned you at the beginning of this post that my reasons were selfish, so let me spell this out a bit clearer. Hulu posts their videos of the ‘Colbert Report’ right around 5:45a CST or so. ColbertNation.com posts their full episode HD video around 7:30a CST. I normally start my episode guide by 6:20a so that I can have it done by 7:30a so I can get ready for work. And considering I spend over an hour a day typing and talking about and analyzing every episode of the show, I tend to only watch it once. So my options are: a) watch it on my TiVo, in standard def, and type the guide every morning on my netbook, or b) wait until CN.com posts the videos so that I can do the typing and editing on my Mac, but risk running late for work every day.

So, yes, this makes me cranky. We work darn hard around here to do the best that we can do and still have a little bit of a life away from the computer. I’ve had a very nice, smooth morning schedule for months after I started using Hulu as my primary source for shows. Also, I can watch the show in HD from Hulu on my shiny new iMac screen. But now? Phhhtt.

Thanks for listening to me rant. How many of you watch the shows on Hulu? And how will you be watching the shows now?

And, while you can, let’s pour a forty of Formula 401 on the ground to honor the death of ‘Colbert Report’ Hulu videos.

h/t to my old friend vdovault as well as MrTigger and Roland