Cable carriers to blame for Hulu's disappearance from Boxee?

Hulu—the network-backed video site that offers free TV shows and movies over the Web—claims its "content providers" pressured it to pull its video streams from Boxee, the service that lets you watch Hulu videos over Apple TV. But who's the real villain? Think "big cable," say some industry observers.

So, here's the deal: You've probably heard of Hulu, the NBC- and Fox-funded video site that offers free, ad-supported network TV shows and movies over the Web. It's a cool service—video quality is pretty good, only a few commercial interruptions, and it's a great way to catch up on the recent "30 Rock" episodes you missed. The catch: You can only watch Hulu on the Web—well, officially, anyway.

Then you've got Apple TV, the Apple-made TV set-top box that offers movies for rent and TV episodes for sale (at $1.99 a pop). Not bad, but no streaming Hulu support—again, not officially anyway.

Finally, enter Boxee, the red-hot startup that (among other things) makes an plug-in that lets you stream Hulu shows (as well as other video content) over Apple TV. Those who've tried Boxee love it, and I've heard many stories of viewers ditching their cable boxes altogether in favor of the Apple TV-Boxee combo.

For months, Hulu essentially looked the other way while Boxee did its thing, but the hammer came down Wednesday night: As of this Friday, no more Hulu on Boxee. In an apologetic blog post, Hulu's CEO wrote that the site's "content providers" had "requested that we turn off access to our content via the Boxee product, and we are respecting their wishes."

So—if "content providers" means what I think it means, we're talking about another case of the big, bad TV networks trying to strong-arm progressive online startups, right?

Well, maybe not. Peter Kafka at the Wall Street Journal sees the shadowy hand of "big cable" at work: "That's because, as I noted before, it's the cable TV providers who have the most to lose from cable bypass plays like Boxee: If you can get all the movies, TV shows and other content you want for free on the Web, why are you paying Comcast or Time Warner Cable for a cable TV subscription?"

Larry Dignan at ZDNet take's Kafka's ball and runs with it: "Put yourself in the shoes of Mr. Cable mogul. You're paying carriage fees to content companies that try to squeeze you for more money almost every year. Meanwhile, these content companies are showing video on the Web and kinda sorta monetizing it. Consumers are beginning to use Web video as a cable replacement. It's only natural that cable companies would apply some pressure on content owners, which have to cave because Web video experiments aren't paying the bills."

Of course, as Dignan points out, "the Web video genie is out of the bottle." The various "content owners" and the big cable carriers will, sooner or later, have to get with the program.

Unfortunately, the cure might be worse than the disease: Tiered bandwidth plans, in which cable carriers charge extra if you exceed pre-set bandwidth caps. And guess what gobbles up the lion's share of bandwidth these days? You guessed it: online video.

So while we might eventually get free Hulu streams delivered to our TVs, we might still have to pay a pretty penny to our cable operators to get it.

Related:
Did Big Cable Force Hulu Off Boxee? [MediaMemo/Wall Street Journal]