Hulu has consistently flailed and suffered from incomplete show catalogs because the company's owners, with a vested interest in the status quo, really don't have much of an interest in Hulu truly disrupting or succeeding. Now Disney and News Corporation, after years of bickering about what to do with the property, are again pushing for a sale on the heels of departures of top company executives last January. An outright sale is a tall order, given that whoever shells out money for Hulu, immediately has to shell out more money to renew a flood of soon-to-expire licensing contracts.

Still, Hulu has had suitors -- most notably former News Corporation Peter Chernin, who it was rumored has bid around $500 million for the company. Now Time Warner Cable and another un-named cable company have thrown their name into the hat, but only as added joint owners alongside Disney, Comcast NBC Universal, and News Corporation:Adding Time Warner Cable to the mix does nothing to fix Hulu's problem that its owners don't really want to disrupt the apple cart -- and therefore don't really want to truly succeed at Internet video (which is precisely why company executives abandoned ship). In other words, Hulu can probably look forward to flailing for another half a decade as a glorified advertisement for traditional television.

Update: a separate report in the Wall Street Journal suggests that DirecTV is another possible suitor.

Time Warner today announced that the company's TBS and TNT channels would offer subscribers the option to stream live television on their tablets and iPads -- but only if you subscribe to traditional cable TV. The news comes on the heels of a similar announcement from ABC that they'd be trialing live streaming in New York City and Philadelphia. All of these announcements are of course in response to Aereo, who the broadcasters are trying to sue into oblivion. By offering their own streaming options -- even if tying them to existing cable subscriptions makes them immensely less appealing -- the studios can claim they're giving consumers what they want, even if with the other hand they're suing innovators out of existence.

As you've probably been noticing, the streaming video market is getting rather fragmented, with different programs getting different exclusive licenses with different streaming providers, a problem that's likely going to get much worse before it gets better. As licenses expire and these exclusive contracts shift underfoot, it's also difficult to know when a program you'd like to stream will be available or expire.

On the heels of yesterday's pricing changes, broadcast streaming company Aereo has now announced that they'll soon be expanding into the Atlanta market on June 17. According to Aereo, the Atlanta market (their third launch area so far) technically covers some 5.3 million consumers in 55 counties across Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina. The Atlanta launch comes as Aereo this week prepares to launch the service in the Boston market, which technically covers some 4.5 million consumers in 16 counties across Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.

With their initial legal victory against the broadcast industry in hand, OTA streaming company Aereo today announced that the company is simplifying their pricing options for new users. The company is eliminating previous annual and daily options, as well as long-term commitments.

According to the New York Times, ABC is preparing to let New York City and Philadelphia users stream local broadcast channels live via smartphones and tablets -- if they have a traditional cable connection. "We keep a very close eye on consumer demand," a Disney-ABC Television Group executive tells the paper. "We watch how people are behaving with their devices, and we really felt that we needed to move faster." The company's "live" button is a clear response to pressure from streaming OTA upstart Aereo, though it rather impressively takes the Times until the twelfth paragraph to mention this. ABC and other broadcasters are suing to stop Aereo for copyright violations, while threatening to yank their broadcast channels off the air if they lose their legal fight.

As had been predicted for some time, Google this week announced their new subscription a la carte video "channels." Under the new pilot program, users can pay anywhere from $1 to $6 a month for individual channels, providing many of these content creators an additional revenue stream to (presumably) fund raising the bar on some of YouTube's inexplicably popular dreck.

So far there's about 53 channels for users to choose from, all viewable here.

This picture (click to enlarge) says it all, though Dan Frommer says some more.

CBS recently proclaimed on Twitter they'd be taking their legal fight against Aereo to a new level with another lawsuit in Boston, but it appears that Aereo has taken pre-emptive action to prevent that from happening. Aereo has filed a complaint in New York today looking for a declaratory ruling that states the broadcast industry can't open new fronts in their legal assault against the streaming upstart.

Anonymous sources insist that YouTube is getting close to launching their rumored subscription TV channels. Pricing for individual channels will run as for as little as $1.99 a month, giving channel creators some added money to improve what is traditionally low-grade fare.Google's move comes as traditional pay TV operators like Verizon and Time Warner Cable are dropping poorer performing channels in order to reduce programming costs -- the lion's share of which are driven by sports. Under Google's model, those channels could find new life under YouTube subscriptions. Though the idea will likely raise eyebrows now given the sheer volume of painful crap on YouTube, it could evolve in a compelling concept.

For years as the entertainment industry sued grandmothers and engaged in all manner of aggressive behavior one common refrain was: "you know, people would probably pirate less if you offered a less expensive, quality video services." Fast forward a few years, and the success of Netflix streaming is a clear testament to that idea, even if there will be some people who'll always pirate. Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos this week noted they see a drop in BitTorrent traffic whenever they launch Netflix streaming in a new territory:

HBO and Time Warner are once again reiterating that you shouldn't hold your breath if you're waiting for a standalone HBO streaming option that doesn't require you have a traditional cable and HBO subscription. As the company has stated previously, they simply don't see the numbers working in their favor, even if many think the company is shooting itself in the evolutionary foot as Netflix's U.S.

Licensing battles have slowly started fracturing the broadband video landscape, making it so if you want a specific program, you need to sign up for a specific service. If you want to watch Disney films, you need to use Netflix.

Amazon is about to bring their Kindle brand to the set top box market. Sources tell Bloomberg that Amazon's Kindle set top box should launch sometime this fall. That puts the device in direct competition with other small TV-focused devices like the Roku, Apple TV, and Boxee Cloud DVR, as well as game consoles by Microsoft and Sony. Around the same time Microsoft is expected to launch not only a new Xbox, but a smaller, cheaper Xbox focused entirely on video. Amazon's set top is being built by Amazon’s Lab126 division in Cupertino, and run by former Cisco and Apple exec Malachy Moynihan.

Latest legal victory clutched tightly in hand, streaming OTA broadband video operator Aereo this week announced that they'll be expanding into the Boston market starting on May 15. According to a company press statement (pdf), the May 15 "Boston" launch date actually covers 4.5 million consumers in 16 counties across Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. The May 15 launch date is also only for those who pre-registered with Aereo -- the service will be available in "Boston" to everyone else on May 30. Aereo is currently only available in the New York City area, though the company promised expansion into 22 additional markets after receiving $38 million in financing back in January.

Reed Hastings has long believed that HBO is Netflix's primary competitor, and even though HBO has stubbornly refused to offer a standalone streaming video product (one that doesn't require a cable connection), Hastings believes they ultimately will. "The goal," Hastings stated earlier this year, "is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us." Hastings got some good news on that front this week, their earnings indicating that Netflix now has more total subscribers than HBO for the first time, 29.17 million to HBO's 28.7 million. The picture looks quite different globally, where Netflix has a long way to catch up to HBO's 114 million subscribers.

One of the licensing constraints placed on cable operators trying to stream broadcaster content to user mobile devices has been that you can only stream content inside the home. Fortunately, those licensing restrictions appear to be easing (or cable operators are paying more) and cable mobile TV apps are evolving accordingly. Time Warner Cable this week announced that some content is now available outside of the home via their Time Warner Cable TV app for Android, Roku and iOS. Mari Silbey over at Light Reading directs my attention to the fact that Cablevision also recently loosened some of the restrictions on content outside the home for their iPad Optimum app. Both companies say outside-the-home content availability should quickly expand.

When Google Fiber launched, the company's $120 TV package (which comes quite deliciously with a symmetrical 1 Gbps connection) had more than a few programming gaps, including ESPN, Disney channels, and premium content from HBO and Cinemax. Most of those gaps have since been filled, with Google announcing today at their blog that they're now offering Google Fiber TV customers HBO and Cinemax. The prices won't be quite as revolutionary as their broadband speeds and prices, however. Google is offering all HBO channels for $20 a month, Cinemax for $10 a month, or a bundle of HBO, Cinemax, Starz and Showtime for $40 a month.

Some additional early details of the next Xbox indicate that the device will tie very closely with existing cable subscriptions, allowing users to essentially use the device as a cable box. That's not terribly surprising, given Microsoft's existing relationships with Comcast, Verizon and others -- which allow users to view a limited amount of cable content via the Xbox 360 (provided you have a cable connection).

Earlier this week News Corporation threatened to stop broadcasting Fox over the air and place the channel on subscription cable if they lose their legal battle against Aereo, which they claim violates copyright. Aereo is simply offering users the ability to get OTA broadcasts streamed via broadband for a small monthly fee, though this erodes the killing many broadcasters have been enjoying using retransmission fees.