Hulu promoted itself as a free way to watch some of your favorite shows if you just weren't near a television, or your DVR died.

And while Hulu expects to continue for quite some time in exactly the same way, it will do it with one less aspect -- the "free" part.

Chase Carey, deputy chairman of News Corp., one of the investors in Hulu, told attendees during this week's OnScreen summit from Broadcasting & Cable that the practice of simply allowing people to watch brand new television shows at the expense of a few commercials will come to an end, possibly as early as 2010.

"It's time to start getting paid for broadcast content online," Carey said, according to B&C writer Claire Atkinson. "We're exchanging analog dollars for digital dimes."

The original idea for projects such as Hulu was to fight online piracy. However, studios and networks that decided to get involved in the project are now looking for ways to turn this into a business venture, much like what Apple Inc. already has done with iTunes.

At the same time, people are starting to get used to buying individual episodes, so why not help them feel like they are getting better valued shows by charging them for it, Carey said.

"Hulu concurs with that," he said. "It needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business."

Hulu was founded in March 2007, according to Wikipedia, as a joint venture between a number of media giants that now include News Corp., The Walt Disney Co. and NBC Universal. It also took on $100 million from Providence Equity Partners, which gave it a 19 percent stake in the operation.

The online service became an instant competitor to iTunes, which offered many television shows on its own. At one point, NBC pulled its programming off iTunes in a highly publicized move to help support the Hulu efforts, but returned programming a few months later. However, iTunes has sold more than 200 million television episodes through 2008, and continues to remain a leader in digital offerings.