Recently, Yahoo! Inc. launched its new TV watching platform, Yahoo View. Yahoo View provides its users with episodes from their favorite TV shows, video clips, and movies. Yahoo View was developed through a business alliance between Yahoo and Hulu. The new site contains free content from Hulu including anime, K-drama, British and Latino videos
Yahoo View will release new content daily. Users will be able to watch episodes the latest five episodes of their favorite TV series eight days after their broadcast. Behind-the-scenes clips and interviews will also be available.
Yahoo View will be one of the ways to watch Hulu content for free now that Hulu has decided to cater exclusively to its subscribers. Although Yahoo is Hulu’s main partner, Hulu also distributes its content to sources such as Comcast, People.com, EW, New York Magazine, etc.
In addition to the conventional TV watching site features, Yahoo View will also include a segment called “beyond the episode”. This segment will connect watchers to the Tumblr community whilst watching clips. The “beyond the episode” segment will feature GIFs, clips, previews, and spoilers related to the shows. This section can also be viewed with filters that hide spoilers.
Despite the launch of Yahoo View, Yahoo will not post all its videos onto its new platform. Videos that relate to finance or sports will be organized in their separate categories. For instance, an NFL live stream of a game would be posted in Yahoo Sports. Yahoo View will be exclusively for TV broadcasts.
Hulu’s content on Yahoo View will still contain ads. In accordance to a revenue-based pact made between Yahoo and Hulu, Yahoo isn’t allowed to put its own ads onto Hulu’s content. This will not stop Yahoo from posting its own ads on the website itself.
Yahoo View is live on desktops and will be accessible for mobile platforms such as iOS and Android in the near future.
