Damn.

Hulu, at the behest of its co-parent News Corp, is going to start charging for content in 2010. This is not so good, this here news.

Here's the money quote from NewsCorpian Chase Carey, so there's no confusion:

It's time to start getting paid for broadcast content online. I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value. Hulu concurs with that, it needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business

An optimist might interpret this as a move toward tiered access, or even the

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http://gizmodo.com/5387909/hulus-free-glory-days-are-officially-numbered

AllThingsD's Peter Kafka is busy dousing concerns that recent statements by News Corp's Chase Carey—that "It's time to start getting paid for broadcast content online"—mean that Hulu is going to die, dead. He makes a good point:

Hulu, the joint venture between News Corp.'s Fox, GE's NBC Universal and Disney's ABC, doesn't plan on charging people to watch the stuff it's currently airing on the site–a mix of first-run shows from broadcast TV, a limited number of cable TV shows and a smattering of movies. But Hulu is trying to figure out how to create some kind of premium offering where you'll pay for stuff that isn't on the site right now....

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http://gizmodo.com/5388745/how-a-paid-hulu-would-work

$9.99

Hulu Plus: $9.99 gets you more shows, more devices, same ads

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/06/hulu-plus-debuts-999mo-with-ads-but-on-more-devices.ars