Can Hulu Save Traditional TV?

Even for Hollywood, where long odds and high stakes are staples of storytelling, the plotline is a doozy: A couple of old business rivals facing the threat of a lifetime agree to put aside their differences and join forces on a half-baked experiment that makes them laughingstocks. (We're thinking Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty.) And who do they put in charge? A young guy, a newbie to the biz. He promptly cleans house and hires an even younger guy who's halfway around the globe. These renegades throw out the rule book -- and they pull it off. Their idea kills. The naysayers feast on crow.

This pitch meeting would not end well. Cue Ari Gold: Nobody'll believe it, not in a million years. Are you nuts? Get the %*#$ out of my office! Yet this is the tale of Jason Kilar and a company called Hulu, costarring the heads of NBC and Fox, with guest appearances by Andy Samberg, Tina Fey, Jeff Bezos, and Walt Disney. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

KaylaMosley: @hulu hulu i think has taken over my life just like crazy commercials said it would. YIKES.

MeGustaCountry: HULU, I'm gonna marry you.
-- posted on Twitter in August and September

Imagine that The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal had gotten together and created Google News. Or that Sony Music and Warner Music Group had introduced iTunes. That's Hulu, a daring attempt by would-be victims of the digital revolution, NBC Universal and News Corp., the parent company of Fox, to control their content -- and their fates. In just two years, Hulu has become the premier broadcast video site on the Web, featuring free instant access to full episodes and clips from more than 800 TV series -- from 30 Rock to The Mary Tyler Moore Show -- via 190 content providers. Not to mention 450 free movies. In July, Hulu had more than 38 million viewers (according to comScore Video Metrics) and delivered more videos than any site but YouTube (Nielsen). "If we didn't do this," says NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, "we knew someone else would."

The mogul-in-the-making who defied skeptics and at times shocked the networks is Kilar, Hulu's 38-year-old CEO. He's more Silicon Valley than Hollywood, a buoyant and boyish straight shooter with humble charm and an obsessive streak when it comes to site design. (Jason Bateman would play him in the movie.) Kilar made his mark at Amazon, building the DVD business from scratch. After nine years, he left and contemplated his next entrepreneurial move while traveling the world for a year -- blogging from 19 countries and 56 cities, and taking nearly 12,000 photos -- with his wife and two small children.

Meanwhile, Zucker and Peter Chernin, then president of News Corp., were collaborating on an unlikely joint venture that they named NewCo. In the spring of 2007, after Kilar returned to the United States, they approached him about doing for NewCo what he'd done for Amazon. Kilar wasn't convinced the joint structure would work and worried that he wouldn't be given true independence. He declined. A week later, at a Seattle Mariners game, he found himself revisiting the decision with his wife. The Mariners came from behind to win on a go-for-broke gamble, a suicide squeeze. By the end of the game, he'd decided to gamble too.

"The industry goes through moments like this every 25 years or so," explains Kilar, a voracious student of media history. "It happened when the major networks started. It happened with cable TV. I realized I'd have way too much regret not doing it."

Of course, it may be the networks that wind up with regret. Because even as Kilar set out to help NBC and Fox avoid the drift toward obscurity that threatens the music and newspaper industries, he began creating something that could contribute to their undoing: a new and better way to watch TV shows.

"My first Hulu experience made my head explode in a brain-spray of awesome." -- Chicago viewer Marisa Wegrzyn's comment on hulu.com, now featured on staff shirts

"Nooo!" the room groans at the stalled video.