“It came as little surprise when Hulu’s maestro Jason Kilar confirmed long-time speculation that he would be leaving his post as the video streaming giant’s chief executive. He dropped the bombshell in typical Kilar fashion — on his blog. This post contained none of the brash, in-your-face dissertations that had so often vexed Hulu’s media company owners,” Janet Morrissey reports for Fortune. “This one was poignant, almost melancholic, as Kilar reminisced about a company he transformed from an empty office suite in 2007 into one that has attracted more than 3 million paying subscribers and generated $700 million in revenue in 2012.”
“‘My decision to depart has been one of the toughest I’ve ever made,’ he wrote, but gave no reasons for his exit. No finger-pointing. No long diatribes about the industry or Hulu’s owners. Zilch,” Morrissey reports. “In fact, the blog left more questions than answers, especially about Hulu’s long-term future and its viability in an industry that has become fiercely competitive.”
“At least one other employee — chief technology officer Richard Tom — is also leaving, causing industry experts to wonder how many others may follow the two out the door. Some speculate that many of the people Kilar brought in with him — colleagues from Amazon and buddies from Harvard Law School — may also exit, which could create considerable uncertainty at Hulu,” Morrissey reports. “Some industry analysts even wonder if this is the beginning of the end of Hulu.”
Morrissey reports, “James McQuivey, a media analyst at Forrester Research [said] ‘I was surprised Kilar stayed as long as he did.’ He believes the media owners have more or less lost interest in Hulu. ‘They don’t want it to succeed,’ says McQuivey. ‘It’s media economics — if it succeeds, it will do so by cannibalizing the currency of the television media business today which is television ratings. So they made a decision to make sure Hulu didn’t get too good or become too successful.'”
Much more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Jax44” for the heads up.]