Hulu’s viewing figures have dropped massively between May and June, at least according to ComScore. However, it’s more likely the huge drop is merely due to a change in how ComScore gathers its statistics.
Either way, it means Hulu’s traffic isn’t as impressive as it, we, and most importantly the advertisers, thought.
Hulu
had a great 2009, with viewing figures growing, enough to persuade Rupert Murdoch and his underlings to propose charging for the service. However, 2010 has brought mixed results.
The subscription service has indeed come to fruition. Hulu Plus will cost $9.99 a month, and bring classic shows and full seasons of new shows to the service. It will also bring Hulu to new devices, such as the PS3 and the iPad.
Traffic, however, appears to have flatlined, with the ComScore results for May 2010 showing new users hard to come by.
ComScore Stats Drop
If that wasn’t bad enough, ComScore’s stats for June show a massive drop in viewer numbers. In May, Hulu scored 43.5 million viewers, but in June the site scored just 24 million viewers, a drop of 45 percent in the space of 30 days.
That clearly isn’t right. And rather than being an accurate portrayal of the number of people viewing Hulu has tracked over the last two months, it has more to do with ComScore overhauling the way it collects data on the Web.
The Bottom Line
Unfortunately for Hulu, the bottom line remains the same. The bottom line being that it has around 24 million viewers every month, and not 43 million as it previously thought it had.
This is likely to hit Hulu in a big way, because advertisers will take these figures and use them to decide whether to sell their wares via Hulu. Less viewers means less will do so, and those that do will likely pay less to do so as well.
Which will mean Hulu Plus will be pushed even harder, as subscriptions become the primary source of Hulu’s revenue rather than advertising.
