Hulu viewing takes a hit

The number of hours consumer spend tuning into Hulu has dropped sharply this year, according to reports citing data from Wedbush Securities, Nielsen and ComScore.

The number of hours spent watching Hulu in August was 65 million compared with 156 million in March, the reports said.

The number of unique users visiting the website tumbled to 12 million from 19 million at end-2011.

Hulu has about two million premium Hulu+ customers and is continuing to add advertisers and new content to the service.

There has been no immediate explanation for the decline, but Hulu has made efforts to stop consumers outside the US from bypassing its geo-blocking feature, which is designed to restrict viewing to the US.