This has been a busy week for Hulu bids. Ten days after Bob Iger confirmed that the current Hulu owners (which include Disney, NBC Universal, Fox and a private equity group), Bloomberg reported that Hulu was looking to entice bidders by promising 5 years of content rights to programming from its current owners and a two-year exclusivity deal (with the exception being the networks own websites). In that same article, Bloomberg discussed the number of companies currently in talks to buy Hulu, mentioning Microsoft, Google and Yahoo by name.

Today, the Wall Street Journal adds Apple’s name to the mix. Frankly, of the four, I think Microsoft would actually make the most sense — go with me here, it’s not about Microsoft as a Windows company, it’s Microsoft who owns Xbox 360 and has already discussed its ability to turn that into the set-top box of the future.

Still, I think a Yahoo deal is untennable, I don’t think that Yahoo has the capital to make a good bid. Google, well, Google has a fundamental misunderstanding of content and content ownership. Look at the failures of creating a real Google Music store. Look at how YouTube has flailed with enticing commercial partners, despite having such a large distribution platform. I know we’re all in love with the big G on Google+, but Google fails so hard at the entertainment and set-top box space (Google TV is maybe one of the most shitty products I’ve ever had the displeasure of using, sorry Google, it’s true. It sucks.), it would kill Hulu dead in the water. Not as much as Yahoo would, but still.

But Apple, Apple is interesting. If Apple were to buy Hulu, obviously they would have yet another distribution platform. The thing is, Hulu, and TV Everywhere and subscription streaming as an idea, fundamentally goes against Apple’s approach to content. Apple sells content a la carte, not because it makes money that way (it really doesn’t), but because that content sells devices like the iPhone, iPad and iPod.

In the subscription streaming place, indeed, in the TV Everywhere space, the iPad is the number one most coveted target. Full stop. That’s why Hulu was on the iPad and iPhone first. Same with Netflix. Same with most cable company apps, same with second screen apps. The iPad is having a huge impact on the way consumers watch TV. It’s insane. Moreover, the engagement with the iPad, even with the same services available elsewhere, is higher and better, which makes advertisers love it.

Why then, would Apple need Hulu? They already have a Hulu app in their App Store. Other than as a defensive move, I don’t see why Apple would buy the company. Plus, something tells me that a deal would include a provision that the new owner has to continue to support the growing number of Hulu Plus devices. That’s something Apple doesn’t like doing.

Still, I’d rather see Apple own it than Google, because Apple at least knows how to work with content companies.

What I don’t understand is why we haven’t heard anything from Netflix. Netflix would be the perfect owner. It would increase the library size and get access to previous-day content. Netflix’s biggest hurdle is in fresh content. Hulu’s biggest strength is fresh content. Win/Win.

I just fear that whoever does buy Hulu won’t know how to keep it running well. Hulu has singlehandedly forced the major media conglomerates into the 21st century and to lose it would be a huge step backward.

Edited to Add: Amazon actually is the buyer that makes the most sense and is the buyer I would most like to see. Amazon gets content, Amazon gets making deals, Amazon gets how VOD works. It would be a great way to expand the Amazon Video on Demand model and offer additional incentives for subscribers or Amazon Prime members.

On Saturday, Grant and I officially celebrated our six month anniversary. Six months! I try not to write too much about my personal personal life here, but I’m making an exception because I am just so freaking in love. I have never been in a better relationship, nor a more wonderful person.

We started to kind of have feelings for each other at SXSW, but we didn’t act on it until after we got home — you know, wanting to make sure it was for real. It is for real. I am infinitely grateful to have him in my life.

2008 Emmy’s

Tonight, starting at 6 PM EDT, I’ll be one of the StyleListers liveblogging the Emmy’s pre-show for the new StyleList Blog (nee StyleDash). Tune in if you want to see, intelligent, funny and sassy coverage of what everyone is wearing.

For the last few years, I’ve liveblogged the Emmy’s at my old journal. Last year, I actually didn’t do it — because I was watching with someone else, but I tried to post about it using some of the Mac programs (it was how I first tried MarsEdit, though I have to be honest, ME is MUCH better at WordPress and other blogging engine than LiveJournal, at least when compared to the Windows standard, Semagic), and got just too frustrated.

I suppose you could say the Emmy’s was one of the final catalysts for me to start my actual website after years of just putting it aside. After doing work for other people, it is still insane that it took me so long to get my own public public outer-image intact.

Anyhoo, I’m uber-excited about both joining my other SLers to discuss the fashion at the Emmy’s. And I might pick up the actual show on this blog, depending on my stamina. I’ll say it right now, if the fucking Amazing Race wins best Reality Show again, I’ll go apeshit. Like, four years ago, back in the era of Colin and Christy (best race team EVER), fine, it made sense. But when you compare TAR against “Project Runway” and “So You Think You Can Dance” — shit, even “Top Chef” — it is just nuts. That PR didn’t win was totally unfair. And that Cat Deeley didn’t get a nod for Best Reality Host and SYTYCD didn’t get a nom for best reality show was the snub of the year. There, I said it. Heidi Klum or bust.

As for the real awards, I’m actually quite happy with most of the big award categories. I think “30 Rock” and “Mad Men” will probably win their respective categories. I’d prefer “Dexter” to win over the AMC thing, but I know where this is going and am OK with it. I mean, as long as “Two and a Half Men” loses, I’m happy.

John Adams will sweep the miniseries awards, just like it did at the Creative Emmy’s — but that is far from surprising. It is this year’s big HBO production. If it didn’t sweep that would be the travesty.

Part of me would like to see Christina Appelgate win just because I’m a sucker for a cancer story, especially when it happens to someone as genuinely funny and seemingly nice as Applegate. Kelly Bundy FTW. Though I think Tina Fey or Julia will take it. I’m actually fine with any of the lead actress nominees. The fact that Amy Poehler got a nod for SNL, for Best Supporting Actress comedy is pretty huge too. Like, whoa, what?

Anyhoo, I’m out for now.

Twitter, unsurprisingly was all over the news. It is an interesting phenomenon, watching people react to shocking news simultaneously. I also think the somber, shocked and dismayed reactions speak to Russert’s character as a journalist and broadcaster to people all over the world and all over the political spectrum.

Tim Russert was a great journalist, broadcast and political commentator. His work and legacy will live on and he will be missed.

I try not to write much about politics on this blog (it isn’t really the venue), but I am deeply, deeply interested in world affairs and I’m kind of sucked into the entire American political system (even though I criticize it frequently). For me, Tim Russert, Meet the Press and Sunday mornings have been a staple of my weekly routine for probably 15 years. I was nine or ten when I first started to really get interested in politics, and Meet the Press was always something I either watched (or later listened to via podcast).

Russert was one of the last journalists from the Murrow/Cronkite school of journalism; he didn’t masquerade opinion as news and he didn’t let his personal politics obscure his ability to interview or go after the truth in a story. He was a gentleman, a family man and a comforting voice. He was also hella smart as a political analyst. He was able to identify the key states needed for electoral victory in 2000 and 2004, and I’m sure his 2008 predictions will be spot-on as well.

As we approach a truly historic election, it is sobering that his voice will not continue to narrate the coverage and events.

He will truly, truly be missed.

My favorite Russert moment was probably his guest spot on “Homicide: Life on the Street”, which to me is one of the greatest television programs of all time and second-only to “The Wire” as the greatest drama of the last 25 years.

So here is a picture of Russert from that episode (“The Old and the Dead”):

When NBC announced that they were going to try airing this monstrosity on network TV back in December, I knew this would be the result. Not because the show was originally created for the Internet (thus being free of pesky things like “unions” — and as it turns out, talent), though that didn’t help, but because when I first saw the first segment of this show back in November, I was instantly appalled, insulted and amused in a “I can’t believe people are actually buying into this crap” way. Simply put, the show is awful. Awful.

And I SHOULD be the target audience for the show, because its basic conceit, is in essence, my life. A bunch of 25 year olds who want to be writers or filmmakers or actors or Internet moguls or “insert other trendy shit people my age want to do here” meander about how pressing and dramatic and angsty their whole existence really is. Because I am a huge fan of angst-based television, commentary on the narcissism of my generation (and really, the narcissism of every generation as it reaches a certain age) and teen melodramas in general, you would think this would be right up my alley. Too bad the show got it all wrong.

Let’s look at some shows that succeeded where “Quarterlife” failed:

• “90210,” while not about my generation (it was about my sister’s generation), was awesome, because, well Brenda Walsh ruled all, and it had camp and kitsch. I mean, until they graduated from college and had like real people problems, it was a total fantasy land, which was awesome.
• “Dawson’s Creek” (which was about my generation, the DC kids graduated from high school one week after I did) was awesome because it was hyper self-aware and brooding and its overly dramatic diatribes perfectly encapsulated my life at the time. It also failed to take itself seriously. Like, it was totally self-important, but it wasn’t like everyone involved with the show didn’t know that they were really just making the Wednesday night 90210 replacement for the next generation (I actually wrote an academic paper charting the Wednesday night at 8:00, and also the Thursday at 9:00, teen dramas from 1990 — 2003 and how they all share the exact same character arcs for the main characters. That is NOT a joke.).
• “The OC” was awesome, because even though it wasn’t technically about my generation (all the actors WERE from my generation, whereas all the Dawson’s Creek kids were way older, so it kind of was), it was the best parts of 90210 and Dawson’s Creek in one.

Then there were the truly awesome, in a non-ironic sense, shows like “My So-Called Life”, “Freaks and Geeks” and “Felicity” which are accurate and true irrespective of what generation they were representing. “Quarterlife” wanted to be high-brow, like a “My So-Called Life” (which those two guys executive produced, but um, they didn’t write that show — that show was written by a woman who was amazingly able to tap into a generation not her own) but ended up being low-brow like the later years of 90210 when every Walsh had left, yet their house was still being used by the actors that will never, ever get work outside of Dancing With the Stars, the guy who owned the diner was in the opening credits and the plot lines were so ridiculous, Brenda from General Hospital asked to be released from her contract so that she could return to daytime TV (and um, you do NOT see actresses asking to go from primetime back to daytime, even if they are as awesome as Brenda Barrett of Supercouple Brenda and Sonny). And to be clear, I love and still love 90210 — I don’t TiVo the post season 7 episodes, but I still watch them if they are on. But 90210 never tried to be anything other than what it was. You would have to pay me to watch “Quarterlife” — and I’ll watch “Rock of Love 2″ with Brett Michaels voluntarily. Think about that.

What really pissed me off though, was how out of touch the show was with the voice it was trying to portray. I blame both the casting director and the actual writers. First of all, whoever the lead narrator chick is — she sucks. Like, she’s AWFUL. I don’t know how much of it is the writing and how much of it is that the actress can’t act for shit, I’d say a little of column A, a little of column B. Plus, not to be a total bitch, but she’s not even cute. As annoying as Marissa Cooper was, at least Mischa Barton was pretty to look at. I mean, I was happy when they killed that character off, but at least she wore cute clothes. I could covet her shoes, even as she butchered her line readings.

Even worse, the character is so completely annoying and insufferable, you can’t identify or sympathize with her at all. In the first little mini-episode, the character actually says, sans irony, “when we were all in elementary school, everyone told us we were geniuses. Why don’t people see that now?” NO. WRONG. The line should have been, “we were brought up believing we were all geniuses; whoops.” The reality is, my generation was raised with the idea that it is smarter and more special than it is — I firmly agree with that (hence, my non-existent book/manifesto is called, You Are Not Special: But That’s OK, Neither am I) — but if high school didn’t set us straight, all it took was going to college for almost all of us to get schooled in how not special we really, really are. The show doesn’t reflect that because it was written and created by people in my parent’s generation. You know why Reality Bites (which this TV show/Internet experiment is desperately trying to be, but with the whole 2008 thing rather than 1994) worked? Because the girl that wrote it WAS Lelaina Pierce. It had authenticity. “Quarterlife” has no authenticity. None. Thus the only people who could be possibly interested are people too young and naive (and brainwashed by My Space) to not realize that post-collegiate life isn’t being accurately represented, or are too old to understand that the actual generation, while absolutely that self-absorbed, is not that out of touch with reality.

Plus, from what little I watched, the whole thing was just insanely predictable. From the first 8 minutes, I was able to surmise and predict shit that was ultimately revealed in December or something. Like, as a total joke, I told Grant that the lead character would be in love with the guy who was secretly in love with her best friend. Um, I can see being able to predict that out of a 42 minute pilot — I can — but from an 8 minute segment of that pilot? That’s just sad and pathetic. Even for fake Internet TV.

If you managed to read and comprehend my rant on the state of awful television and/or made for Internet TV shows, kudos. I figure I might as well write SOMETHING that takes advantage of all the money my parent’s have wasted on me pursuing higher education.