Like music and telecommunications before it, the digitial revolution is set to hit TV hard in the next year or two.  One player that has emerged is Hulu, a joint-venture owned primarily by the companies that control the legacy broadcaster Fox, ABC, and NBC.  What is interesting is that NBC is now controlled by cable TV giant Comcast and Hulu may end up being a big threat to the cable TV industry.

Even before now, the culture of Hulu that has made it successful has clashed with the culture of its owners:

The partners hired Mr. Kilar, former general manager of Amazon.com Inc.’s North American media business, giving him autonomy to chart a new course. Mr. Kilar, 39, was determined to create an independent corporate culture closer to the tech world than the tradition-bound television business.

The company built a Silicon Valley-inspired startup in a low-slung office park in Santa Monica, a few miles west of its Hollywood owners. In the break room, engineers modified a refrigerator to house a beer keg, cutting a hole in it to fit a special tap in the shape of Hulu’s logo.

Mr. Kilar gave new hires a culture manifesto, an 1,100-word document that paints Hulu as a frugal meritocracy where “Fruity Snacks boxes hold up our monitors,” but where everyone has a “neurotic focus on quality.”

In an office expansion, Mr. Kilar and senior managers gave up their offices to sit at desks in an open floor plan among hundreds of employees, underscoring Hulu’s egalitarian approach.

It wasn’t long before the new venture clashed with owners’ established ways.

What is interesting to me is that Hulu may need a certain kind of culture like the one it has created but that may be prevented by those clinging to the past. Ultimately some company or group of companies will write the future of what TV looks like…the legacy players need to decide if they want to be part of that ride or not.  There has already been upheaval at Hulu (read the rest of the article linked below) as they bring in people with cable/satellite backgrounds to manage operations instead of people from tech/startup backgrounds that were running things initially.  This is a great example of how culture can impact a business, possibly negatively.

Hulu Reworks Its Script As Digital Change Hits TV. Sam Schechner, Jessica E. Vascellaro. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Jan 27, 2011. pg. A.1