Hulu cut off Best Picture for "some"

Hulu wins the award for Best Technical Disaster

Last night, Hulu cut off at around 10:45pm Eastern for “some” subscribers. I was one of them, and there appeared to be many of us “some” on social media. “Some” comes from The Hollywood Reporter’s recap of the incident, and as I wasn’t at everyone’s home checking, I too will go with “some” since I know it; happened to at least me.

“Some” of us, who trusted Hulu to properly stream a major event, missed out on seeing Best Actress and Best Picture. Best Picture is kind of a big deal when it comes to The Oscars.

At a place I used to work, such a disaster would have lead to The Meeting. The Meeting is to make sure that No Such Thing Ever Happens Again. Say, for example, Carrie Underwood’s microphone didn’t work during the Inauguration. You would definitely hold The Meeting to make sure that the next time Carrie Underwood sings during the Inaugaration we have a Procedure to make sure No Such Thing Ever Happens Again. Get all the tech people in here, a few station managers and a VP or two for an hour. Come up with some procedures. Meet again tomorrow to report back on what we’ll do the next time Carrie sings. Oh, we’ll also blame some part-timer for what went wrong this time.

Just two weeks ago we had a reason for The Meeting. The broadcasts of SNL50 ended early in Houston and Detroit. The local station managers even put out statements. Let’s take a look at those, because it’s as-if possible perhaps maybe someone at Corporate helped craft them.

The statement out of Houston, attributed to the GM reads:

NBC had communicated to us Friday afternoon that the live show would run long – with a scheduled end time of 10:15 p.m. We had our technical teams ready for this planned 15-minute overrun. When the show ran even later, we didn’t make the real-time adjustments, and that’s why the final 13 minutes were missed.

I see. I didn’t want to see Paul McCartney or the Goodnights anyway. Things happen.

The statement out of Detroit, attributed to the GM, a different human than the Houston GM, reads:

"NBC had communicated to us Friday afternoon that the live show would run long -- with a scheduled end time of 11:15 p.m.. We had our technical teams ready for this planned 15-minute overrun. When the show ran even later, we didn’t make the real-time adjustments, and that’s why the final 13 minutes were missed."

John, did you mess up and paste the same thing twice by mistake? Nope. Those are two different statements. Note the first one says 10:15, the second says 11:15.

Allow me to help Hulu prepare a statement to explain what happened last night. It could read something like this.

ABC had communicated to us Friday afternoon that the live show would run long -- with a scheduled end time of 10:45 p.m.. We had our technical teams ready for this planned 15-minute overrun. When the show ran even later, we didn’t make the real-time adjustments, and that’s why the final 13 minutes were missed. Sorry about Best Actress and Best Picture. Oopsie.

You don’t suppose someone programmed the computer to end at 10:45, do you? Is there nobody at National Technical Operations Center on Sunday Night? (or some room with a name like that where there are lots of computers and video screens) Was NOBODY paying attention? Is there no way to “extend feed” or quickly “start new feed?” I cycled in and out of the the menu a few times - no second feed showed up, at least not in a timely manner - before hopping on a boat and sailing the seas so that I could see Best Picture, if you know what I mean.

A friend of mine suggested I go back to Cable. No thanks. I gave up on YouTube TV at the end of the NFL regular season once they jacked the cost of YTVV to $82.99 It’s not that I don’t have $82.99, but I tend to want to watch one thing a month that I would need “cable” for. And by one, I mean zero - I used Tubi for The Super Bowl, and Hulu for the Oscars….well, except for the pesky Hulu Screwed Up part, but luckily I have a boat. Hulu frustration aside, it isn’t worth $83 a month to me to not watch anything.

I can tell you where I was on one particular night in 2008. I was in my office at Sirius. It was my 10th Anniversary, and Day 4 of my vacation. Jamie Foxx had decided to do a broadcast, IIRC it was from the Democratic National Convention, and I was told by my boss I had to come in - on my 10th Anniversary, on Day 4 of my vacation - to make sure the broadcast went well. So I sat at my desk, monitoring the situation, ready to act should something go sideways. The broadcast was fine. As I tell my students, “sometimes ya gotta work.”

Aside from Hulu making a completely unacceptable error - would you now trust Hulu with the Super Bowl? I wouldn’t today. What if the game goes into Overtime? - I thought the Oscars were excellently produced.

The show had a lot of star power - but they were modern day stars that even us people on Old Man Mountain had heard of, which made the show feel very “now.”

Conan did a nice job as host - I don’t have too much to say about Conan, which is exactly what you want out of that role. Conan was fun, funny, and got us from Thing to Thing. That’s the gig.

One particularly nice piece of producing was the choice of how to honor Quincy Jones - with a song from The Wiz. That was a nice way to tie the past to the present (Wicked) so kudos to whoever thought of that.

Grades:

Academy Awards Producers: A

Conan O’Brien: A

Hulu: F Minus

There is no Music Monday today as I bumped it for this more timely piece. Another thing I teach my students - a rundown is not a Blood Oath. You should have A Plan, but you also need to feel the moment.

In other topics, over the weekend, I started to ponder The Math of Youtube’s 1,000,000,000 active viewers statement. That piece is linked below.

I also noticed James Cridland’s Podnews audio edition this morning mentioned what I think were four separate layoffs in the industry. (I haven’t read the print version yet, as I am unexpectedly Substacking out of the gate this morning.) Layoffs are pretty lousy, especially with 1,000,000,000 active viewers of podcasts on Youtube in a month. You’d think companies could find a way to make money from all those people watching podcasts.

Snark and point-made aside, I feel badly for anyone who loses their gig and hope those folks land on their feet quickly.

And finally, also in the post below, someone has invented “Video Audio” which makes me laugh to no end.