‘Binge Times’ Book Excerpt: When Cutthroat Media Rivals Decided To Join Forces To Create Hulu, Streaming’s Unlikely Trailblazer
Streaming today is a free-for-all, with major companies jockeying for position as they try to catch up with Netflix. In the early days of the online video revolution, though, one pioneer was not a solo act but instead a collective: Hulu. In their new book, Binge Times, which will be published Tuesday, Deadline business editor Dade Hayes and Reuters correspondent Dawn Chmielewski explore the current race but they also trace the origins and path of Hulu. The joint venture has many ties to today’s landscape and offers many lessons 15 years after its launch. As the existential threat of YouTube loomed, this was one case when rivals at the box office and in the Nielsen ratings tried to work together to defend their turf against Big Tech. Here is their story.