Nobody is sure about what changes are going to happen to Hulu in the future, since News Corp. and Disney are still making decisions. But we have got confirmation about one thing. When CEO Jason Kilar steps down Andy Forssell, senior vice president of content, will take over as acting CEO.

Kilar wrote on the Hulu blog, “Andy exemplifies the Hulu culture and has been central to Hulu’s journey, helping to grow this company from two content partners and no revenue to over 450 content partners and approximately $700 million revenue in 2012“.

About the Hulu part-owners Disney and News Corporation, Kilar is saying that they are finalizing “forward-looking plans” with the website. As you might know, the two companies have disagreements about Hulu’s direction. While Disney is planning for an ad-supported future, News Corp. wants to increase Hulu’s paid subscribers.

Kilar announced back in January that he will be leaving the company, and he has announced that he will depart “at the end of this quarter”. There hasn’t been any announcement about whether Forssell will get the job permanently. According to Kilar, the matter will only be discussed after Hulu’s future is decided.

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Hulu is already not as popular as rival Netflix and there will be more competition from Amazon and the Redbox Instant service, and now the future of the service itself has become uncertain due to problems from the inside.

According to available info, News Corp. and Disney, the two companies which each own roughly a third of Hulu, have started discussing the future of the service and their own stakes in the company. The two companies have plans to purchase the other’s stake or sell it to an outside company. Apparently, they have disagreements regarding the direction in which Hulu should go.

Currently, Hulu offers a free version and also a Hulu Plus subscription service and both the offerings include ads. The disagreement between the two companies is that Disney prefers an ad-supported strategy, while News Corp. feels that the focus should be on subscriptions. In the case of subscriptions, Hulu with just 3 million subscribers is nowhere near Netflix’s 27 million.

Hulu’s CEO Jason Kilar and CTO Tom Rich earlier announced their plans to step down from the company. So the future of the service might only be decided after its new CEO and CTO are announced, possibly along with new owners as well. Till then uncertainty surrounds Hulu.

Do you use Hulu regularly? Do you subscribe to Hulu Plus?

[Source]

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Recent reports indicate that Steve Jobs will be seen on-stage with News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch on December 9 at the launch of a tablet newspaper The Daily have led to speculations that The Daily may very well be offered as an app in the Apple App Store. According to Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, “Developers at News Corp. building the app already have preliminary documentation on the new subscription billing APIs from Apple.”

On a similar tone, a href=”http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/11/rumors-ios-4-3-will-offer-app-subscriptions-as-early-as-december/”>Macstories’ Federico Viticci has reported December 13 as the launch date of iOS 4.3, also adding that content based recurring subscriptions shall be a part of the iOS 4.3 update.

Considering the fact that both News Corp. and Apple are playing a huge role in The Daily, it would be plausible to assume that the iOS 4.3 update can most probably be on its way in mid-December itself so that it almost co-incides with the launch of The Daily. Richard Branson is also rumored to be releasing a competitor to Murdoch’s “Daily” called “Project”. This is expected to be announced Monday.

As regards to the iOS update, it is believed that a subscription based recurring billing system will help increase the number of media applications on iTunes too such as newspapers, TV, magazines, etc. Presently, many subscription based content providers have apps for iOS, but they also need to establish separate recurrent billing accounts for iTunes. Obviously so, if a user is paying every week for a newspaper or any other media content, the process would have to be made simpler than its present state and thus, the iOS 4.3 update becomes all the more vital.

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The Daily may be exclusive to the iPad, which would be strange since similar tablet (and smartphone) devices could be capable of accessing the content. Steve Jobs has reportedly come to some type of deal with Murdoch to create this digital “newspaper.” The kicker is that there will not be a print version. At all. It’s digital only. Does this spell the end of Newsprint?

In Rupert’s mind, every member of the family will have a tablet of some kind in the not-too-distant future, thanks to economies of scale and lowered price points. He also recognizes that readers will be spending more time on their tablets than ever before.

This is so much more than just a rumor too. News Corp has been putting together a newsroom of about 100 staffers for about the last three months. According to reports, the Daily will have its beta launch around Christmas and will cost less than five bucks a month. That’s way cheaper than, say, the New York Times… and it’s going to be published seven days a week.

Considering that more people (myself included) have come to digest our news for free online, this low-cost alternative to the dead tree newspaper could prove to be an interesting experiment for Murdoch and News Corp. [WWD]

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