Hulu Drops The Daily Show, The Colbert Report
By Krystal Clark
Over the past year, Hulu has grown significantly in terms of its viewing audience and its video library. The website offers high quality online streaming of some of the biggest shows on television, but unfortunately two of them will no longer be available. According to The Christian Science Monitor, the site is giving the axe to Comedy Central giants, “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report.”
Hulu’s audience has steadily grown reaching over 1 billion views a month, coming in second only to YouTube. One of the major reasons why its been so successful in the online market is due to the cooperation from the major networks, NBC, ABC, and Fox. But Comedy Central gets no love, therefore their programming will no longer be a part of its streaming roster.
On March 9th, “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” will be removed from the website. Reruns will still be available but only through the official sites, TheDailyShow.com and ColbertNation.com. Hulu exec Andy Forssell sent out an official press release regarding the series’ departure, which sounded cold, calculating, and corporate.
“When a show is about to cycle out, we try our hardest to ensure that users who have subscribed to the show or have episodes of the show in their queue are notified in plenty of time so that they can catch up before the series sunsets. But typically we don’t recognize these expirations in any larger way than that, as it’s a fairly regular occurrence. Today, though, I want to recognize a couple of our favorite shows that are leaving the service for now, shows that we love so much that we simply can’t let them go without a more public and fond farewell.”
Are words like “sunset” and “expirations” supposed to make the blow any lighter? If you’re one of the many people who follow both of these programs on Hulu, it’s time to find a new place to watch because after Monday, they’ll be gone.
What do you think about Hulu removing The Daily Show and The Colbert Report from their line up?
Thursday, March 4, 2010 8:43PM
Jon Stewart has shown himself to be an ignorant, insensitve lout repeatedly in the name of ‘humour.’
I tuned him out the day he displayed a photo of the orthodox patriarchs and called them a Darth Vader convention.That same day a orthodox priest was decapitated in Iraq.
Friday, March 5, 2010 5:02AM
WOW, The Daily Show and Colbert Report is the only news information show I have been able to stomach or rely on during these highly divided political times. I feel not so alone when I here the truth, which is also common sense truth, when I watch Jon and Steve expose the idiotic behavior that influences our lives in many ways. Do I mentally live that far off from Hula, really? What's up. Am I really that naieve; always amazed at the size of our dividing gaps. Help me out here guys.
Friday, March 5, 2010 6:42AM
Doesn't make sense – is there some other story behind this that we're not being told? Why would Hulu, whose costs of distributing content are minimal (and as user views decline, so does their bandwidth cost) drop any shows like this? Do they have to pay fixed licensing fees regardless of user uptake, so that as views decline, shows become unprofitable?
Friday, March 5, 2010 11:33AM
Do you think it was his fault?
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 6:45PM
Scares me that people like you get their news from Comedy Central. No wonder our society is mixed up and confused! Thanks for contributing to the mental (un)healthiness of our country.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 8:55PM
Why? Did a priest show you a good time when you were a child?
Tuesday, May 24, 2011 6:45AM
I don't care about the priest thing, but as someone who doesn't have cable and followed these shows thru hulu alone, that sucks.