Business in brief: Days numbered for free Hulu

New York – Hulu, the free online video site where television shows and movies can be watched in their entirety, will start charging fees at some point, one of its owners said.

Hulu has struggled to make money despite its popularity as an ad-supported site. News Corp., which co-owns the site with NBC Universal, Walt Disney Co. and Providence Equity Partners, said it hasn’t decided what form the subscription model would take.

Chase Carey, News Corp.’s president and chief operating officer, said at a conference in New York on Wednesday that subscription fees could come as early as 2010.

Associated Press

Ex-Fed chief: ‘slog’ coming

Harrodsburg, Ky. – Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker warned Thursday that the country faces a “considerable slog” in recovering from a deep recession, and that any economic gains will be too mild for a while to make a big dent in stubbornly high unemployment rates.

Speaking to a group of Kentucky corporate and government leaders, Volcker said more manufacturing and exports are among the needed prescriptions, not additional consumer spending, to heal the steepest economic downturn since the Great Depression.

“It took years to get into the situation we’re in; it’s going to take some years to get out of it,” Volcker said at an afternoon-long economic roundtable in central Kentucky.

Volcker bemoaned some economic trends leading up to the downturn: a U.S. savings rate that “practically disappeared” and a financial industry that became adept “at turning lousy credit into good credit, or that’s the way it appeared.”

“I think we have a considerable slog to get through” in recovering, he said.

Associated Press

Chenille clothing recall expanded

Washington – Highly flammable women’s robes sold by Blair LLC are now linked to nine deaths, and the company is expanding a recall to include more products imported from the Pakistani manufacturer.

The products were initially recalled in April by Blair after it learned of three robes catching on fire.

The Consumer Products Safety Commission and Blair are expanding the recall to include more chenille robes and three other chenille products, all made by A-One Textile & Towel, of Karachi, Pakistan, according to the consumer agency.

About 300,000 units of the garments are now recalled, including the full-length women’s chenille robes, women’s chenille jackets, women’s chenille lounge jackets, and women’s chenille tops.

Associated Press