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"So what?" Chernin says. "You can’t protect old business models artificially." This is a truth the tech community knows well, but it’s not what you expect to hear from a media baron like Chernin. What he and Zucker have come to understand is that the media companies no longer have a choice: If they don’t put their shows online, someone else will. "The best way to combat piracy is to make your content available," Zucker says. "We don’t know for sure what the impact is going to be on our established businesses. But we want to make sure consumers know they don’t need to steal our content. That’s really what Hulu is about."

In the meantime, Hulu provides a tantalizing glimpse of the future of television. Unlike the networks, which have always been carefully programmed by their executives, Hulu is programmed by user choices and recommendation software. Schedules don’t matter; popularity alone will bubble a show to the top. The results can be startling. One of Hulu’s top five shows is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, an FX series starring Danny DeVito that has never gotten much attention on TV. Another is Arrested Development.

Hulu isn’t saying exactly how many people watch a given show, but the numbers are high enough that Kilar is becoming a must-see guy for producers. Joss Whedon, who created such shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, popped in to talk about Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, his three-part video—which Hulu got as a Web exclusive. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane met with Kilar over the summer to chat about how well his show has been doing. As usage grows, Kilar can expect many more such tèAte-è0-tèAtes.

"The world has turned completely upside down," Kilar says, mopping up the last of his scramble as dusk settles outside the little Santa Monica restaurant. "I find that very inspiring. Others might be scared out of their wits. But to me, this is the way media always should have been." He allows himself a slight chuckle. As he speaks, Hulu is weeks away from unveiling a tool that lets users embed the Hulu service itself into their Web site. Soon you’d be able to stick all of online television into your blog. Finally, after decades of dictating what we can watch and when, the networks would be reduced to a Web widget, functioning at the user’s whim. Just as it should be.