Leaked Email: Quincy Smith Wants To Counter “Reckless Hulu Streams”

There is no love lost between CBS and Hulu. You won't find any full episodes of CBS shows on Hulu , and CBS's own site TV.com is so similar in look and feel that one might call it a product of envy . So it should come as no surprise that the knives are still out for Hulu at CBS Interactive. An email with an article critical of Hulu from CBS Interactive CEO Quincy Smith that was passed around internally (excerpted below) landed in our inbox. Smith confirms that the email is real. Earlier today, he passed along an article from Contentinople titled "Execs Rip Hulu for Giving Away Content" which quotes media executives on a panel laying into Hulu for giving away TV shows for free. The panelists in the article also praise the cable industry's proposed TV Everywhere model which will make TV shows and movies available online only to consumers who are already existing cable TV subscribers and can be authenticated as such. Smith passed along the entire article to his executive team, along with a note wondering "how hard it would be to prove that some ratings declines are a result of reckless hulu streams." CBS's ratings for the Fall Season premiers have been doing relatively well, compared to other networks. The implication Smith seems to be making here is that maybe the other networks are down because their audience is going online. If he could prove that, it would make his strategy of shunning Hulu look smart. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco