Aussie Catch Up TV is a dog’s breakfast, can the iconic Hulu make headway locally?



Australia’s online Catch Up TV services are a hotch potch mess. There’s no one central portal for finding everything you want, despite the promises of the Freeview consortium. Each of the five major networks has its own online TV offering - letting you watch full length episodes via a web browser. Unfortunately the services vary from the awesome to the dismal. In the awesome corner we have the ABC’s iView, while in the dismal corner sits Ten’s pathetic offering. Somewhere in between sit Seven’s Plus7 and Nine’s Fixplay, which both show promise, as well as SBS’s fledgling service. The picture quality also varies between them.



Some of these Australian Catch Up TV services are also available directly via TVs, Blu-ray players and media players - although you’ve often got access to less content then you do via the website. For example, Plus7 offerings via Sony’s Bravia Internet Video service are abysmal.



For many Australians, the US-only Hulu service is the holy grail of Catch Up TV. Hulu is a joint project between NBC Universal, Fox Entertainment Group and ABC - offering free access to full length episodes of dozens of favourites such as Saturday Night Live, The Office, Family Guy, The Simpsons, Glee, The Daily Show, Bones, House and Grey’s Anatomy. It also offers an extensive back catalogue along with a small range of movies.



Hulu is only available in the US, although Australians can trick the site into thinking they’re in the US using workarounds such as a Virtual Private Network. Hulu tends to put shows online soon after they screen in the US, so Aussies with access can use it as an alternative to BitTorrent for keeping up with their favourite shows. Hulu attempts to block such access in an ongoing game of cat and mouse, but there’s always a workaround.



Australia’s Nine Network has signed a memorandum of understanding with Hulu, which would seem to be the final nail in the coffin for Freeview’s long-promised cross-network Catch Up TV service. Yet the Freeview consortium insists that it’s still on the drawing board.



Most web-savvy Australians would be excited at the prospect of legit access to Hulu. Well, at least excited about access to the US version - which they won’t get. If Hulu is expanded to Australia, don’t expect to enjoy the same wealth of new content available in the US. We’ll still get screwed by the same international rights issues that cripple most other local content services. Australian Hulu might include one or two flagship shows, such as Family Guy, in order to make headlines. But the rest will probably be a rehash of what we currently get via Fixplay and other services - ancient foreign repeats, painful Aussie reality TV and a thin smattering of new comedies and dramas.



I have to admit that if you dig through Fixplay you’ll find some hidden gems such as The Young Ones, Black Books, The Mighty Boosh and Coupling - all old UK offerings. So unless you’ve just woken from a 10 year coma, it’s more of a Rehash TV service than a Catch Up TV service. We’ve already got free-to-air Rehash TV services - just look at the line-up on GO!, GEM, 7TWO, 7mate and Eleven.



I’d love for Nine to prove me wrong and bring a decent Hulu offering to Australia, but I’m not holding my breath. Rather than tossing us the usual scraps, Nine will need to cut a decent deal for Australian viewers if Hulu is going to catch our attention.