Hulu, an online video service, has commisioned its first scripted TV show to go on air next month, which is seen as a move to position itself as an alternative to cable television.
The documentary-style drama ‘Battleground’ follows the first documentary series by Hulu, titled ‘A Day in the Life,’ which was a success according to Hulu programming executive Andy Forsell.
Hulu chief executive Jason Kilar says the company will spend around $500m on content in 2012, compared to $375m spent last year on covering new content acquisition and re-licensing the existing content.
The original content will be available on Hulu’s free Web service, without any specific privilege for paying subscribers, in a bid to expand its scope of services.
Kilar said "At scale, our model allows us to profitably pay content owners approximately 50 percent more in content licensing fees" as it has got to beat competition, compared to other subscirption services."
Hulu’s senior vice president content Andy Forssell said what they were looking for was to overcome ‘structural barriers’.
Hulu said on Friday that its revenue grew 60% to $420m for year ending 2011, with more than 1.5m paying subscribers.
