Hulu today launched a preview of Hulu Plus, the first ad-supported subscription service to offer full current season runs of hit TV programs from ABC, FOX and NBC across multiple Web-connected devices, in HD, for US$9.99 a month. Now, TV lovers can watch full current seasons of shows such as Glee, Family Guy, Grey’s Anatomy, Modern Family, and The Office and full series runs or multiple back seasons of shows like The X-Files, Arrested Development, Desperate Housewives and Law and Order: SVU on Macs and PCs as well as on Apple’s iPad and iPhone, and select 2010 Samsung Blu-ray players, Blu-ray Home Theater systems, and TVs through Samsung Apps, in up to 720p high-definition resolution. Hulu Plus will also be coming soon to the PlayStation3 computer entertainment system.
“We’re thrilled to begin sharing this revolutionary new service with subscribers” said Jason Kilar, Hulu CEO, in the press release. “Hulu Plus is the first subscription service that offers consumers a wide array of today’s top current TV series on all four screens, in HD. With Hulu Plus, now your favorite TV shows love you back.”
Hulu Plus builds on the extensive content offering of the ad-supported, free Hulu service and brings together one of the deepest offerings of TV shows, both current and classic, to subscribers in the U.S. Every episode of more than 45 current hit programs from ABC, FOX and NBC will be available all season long, from Modern Family and Grey’s Anatomy to Glee and Family Guy to The Office. In addition, TV lovers will be able to enjoy full series runs and numerous back seasons of dozens of classic shows like The X-Files, Law and Order: SVU, Arrested Development, Saturday Night Live, Miami Vice, Ugly Betty, Quantum Leap, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Roswell and Ally McBeal.
The Hulu Plus library aggregates content from more than 100 providers across broadcast networks, major studios and independent content creators. For content owners, Hulu Plus offers a compelling new way to distribute and monetize their programs across multiple screens.
For a full list of content providers and shows available, view the Hulu Plus Content page.
Access Anywhere – Across Four Screens on Multiple Devices
Subscribers to Hulu Plus will be able to watch their favorite shows not only on their Macs and PCs but also on select mobile phones, televisions (through gaming consoles and other boxes connected to the TV, or directly through Internet-connected TVs), Blu-ray players, and tablets, including Apple’s iPad and iPhone. Hulu’s preview launch device partners include the Apple iPad, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and third-generation iPod touch; select Samsung connected TVs, Blu-ray players, and Blu-ray home theater systems; and PS3 coming soon. More info and download link for Hulu Plus app for Apple iOS devices here.
In the coming months, Hulu Plus will also be available on additional Sony Electronics Internet-connected entertainment devices including select BRAVIA TVs and Blu-ray Disc players, as well as select TVs and Blu-ray players from VIZIO. In early 2011, Hulu Plus will launch on the Xbox 360. Hulu will continue to evaluate opportunities to extend Hulu Plus to other hardware devices and platforms as well.
For more information on supported devices and system requirements for Hulu Plus, please refer to the Hulu Plus Device Partner page.
High Quality Viewing Experience – Streaming in HD
Hulu continues to push the quality of the online video viewing experience forward. Hulu Plus will bring many programs to users in 720p high definition to take advantage of the high-resolution screens on HD-capable devices. On select devices, adaptive bitrate streaming will ensure the highest quality video streams for the viewer’s bandwidth.
Advertising
Hulu Plus enables Hulu, for the first time, to extend its innovative and targeted ad platform across four screens, reaching Internet-connected users wherever they are. For the preview launch of Hulu Plus, Hulu is partnering with leading marketers Nissan and Bud Light who are expanding their reach with Hulu’s engaged and connected audience. Hulu expects to include additional advertisers for the broad consumer launch of Hulu Plus.
Pricing & Availability
Hulu Plus is available to U.S. consumers for $9.99 per month. Hulu Plus is currently available as a preview during which subscriptions are offered by invitation only to enable Hulu to ensure the highest quality experience for each user and to responsibly scale the service over time. To request an invite, visit http://www.hulu.com/plus.
Even without an invite, during this preview period consumers are welcome to download a free Hulu Plus application to the iPad, iPhone 3GS and 4, and third-generation iPod touch, and other supported devices to test the experience with a limited selection of free episodes and clips. Hulu Plus is expected to be made widely available to the public in the coming months.
Source: Hulu
Wait. So you pay for a service that still presents ads? Let me read that again.
So I gotta pay 10 bucks a month AND watch commercials?
That is messed up!! Paying $$ plus having to see ads. Screw this, I WILL NOT be doing this!
Ad supported? Count me out. I’ll stick with ABC player. The new season of Wipeout has started. That, and Phineas & Ferb are the only shows on TV worth watching.
time fire up bittorrent again
iTunes is still the best deal if you gotta pay.
Poor Adobe.
I would pay once for an ad-supported app, or pay a subsription fee for an ad-free app.
I will not subscribe to watch ads.
Can’t say I’m surprised about that. You see, the past model of network television was very generous to networks. They could rake in a shitload of money from advertisers without actually providing content that anyone wanted to watch. Sure, there were Nielsen numbers, but trusting that those actually reflected true viewership was very close to religion.
Enter the digital age. All of a sudden, there are actual, true viewership numbers. Enter iTunes, where viewers actually only pay for what they truly want to watch.
The nice business the networks still have is about to crumble, and they desperately try to save it. Which means ads AND subscribers. And they even admitted that they need to ‘teach’ us, the viewers, that this is the way to do it. Which it ain’t, in my opinion.
I crunched the numbers, and it should be relatively easy to finance a show just with iTunes buyers. No advertisers and networks necessary. And I believe that is what will happen in not to far a future.
Sure that frightens the hell out of network executives. But I can’t say I pity them.
Slow down, folks. It really depends on how many commercials there are, the quality of the service, the amount of content, and the timing of the content.
If I can watch a high-quality 720p stream on my PS3, iPad, Mac, or iPhone 4, the commercials are a limited to a few per episode, it’s the shows I want to see, AND I can get it immediately after the network airing, I’ll gladly pay a measly $10/mo.
On the other hand, if the quality is only average, there are more than “limited commercials”, the content isn’t anything special, or if I have to wait until the next day after the network broadcast, then there will be nothing “Plus” about it, and they can stuff it.
Yeah, doesn’t make much sense when I’m paying $9 a month for Netflix and getting streaming on-demand TV and movies to the TV through the Nintendo Wii (which kicks a**, by the way).
It’s even worse! I just downloaded the APP – you have to request an invite to join Hulu PLUS, and apparently their not handing them out very quickly!
Then the APP tells you you can preview stuff from the FREE section, and every time I click on a show, I get an error message. Nice! Another Not Ready for Primetime Player!
ABC Player is AWESOME and is doing it right. FREE content, with embedded commercials. Hulu’s pay and watch commercial model is BS!
ADS ARE NOT A FEATURE!!!
Not impressed. App is extremely buggy, with constant “unknown error” messages. There’s virtually no free content at all. I finally got a movie to play and there are a lot of ads. You can fast forward between ads (shown by dots in the timelime) but if you jump over an ad, it plays before you can resume. Not the worst thing for free content, but extremely unfriendly for paid content. I’ve been contemplating canceling my DTV, but this isn’t the solution at all. Back to the drawing board, Hulu. Think users first, then advertisers, and maybe you can make a product people will pay for.
There’s got to be an easier way to watch Real Housewives of Atlanta and The Ultimate Fighter, the two pieces of television history!
Netflix unlimited streaming is worth $10/month – plus you get access to first-run DVDs.
From what I’ve seen of the lineup on Hulu’s Plus site, getting a limited subset of TV shows with ads at $10/month is an LOL pricing model.
Everyone is complaining about paying a subscription and watching commercials. That’s not the half of it.
Don’t forget that AT&T just dropped their data limits. They knew all these data apps were coming. You get to pay both a subscription and data overage charges to watch commercials if you’re using 3G.
I just hope the ads are very low quality and consume minimal data bandwidth. Otherwise, a good chunk of that 2 GB limit will be taken up with HD commercials! Not good.
In my experience, media consumption is driven by two components: Content and Convenience. Price is not a primary factor, and not necessarily quality.
1) Content: You need to have content that people actually want to watch. Looking over the content list on Hulu Plus, it’s very much lacking. Very little that I would like to watch. Either I already bought it (no commercials), or I don’t care. Series not fully there (just one season of ’24’?). Series I like not there at all.
2) Convenience: How is your service convenient? I need to have broadband access. There are numerous errors; there are ads I cannot jump over. Having cable and TiVo or similar is a much better deal. I know how bad your free service works; I don’t see how the subscription service can be better. It needs to be for me to fork over money, though.
MSG to Hulu. You have lost your mind. The browser bar on your website says “full episodes for free” – I guess it needs to say “full episodes for free unless you are an iPad user who are among the most coveted by advertisers”. I won’t be subscribing to this.
Netflix is indeed a better value. Hulu does have the advantage of showing current content. As an alternative to cable it’s not bad. I pay $45/mo to my cable company and there is no end of commercials there. Depending on what is being offereed on Hulu, I can see it as a low budget replacement for my cable, although you can’t watch the Lakers live winning the NBA Championship on Hulu. That’s priceless.
Let’s see…
Alf? Hmm…Ally McBeal? Well well… Angel? All for 10 bucks a month?
Yeah, I’ll give it a miss, thanks.
“Select” customers. Wow. Sorta snobbish like Jobs and Apple, huh?
In other words, “we’re not ready to meet demand.”
Consistent with Jobs and Apple, huh?
Not a chance, no way, no how — not going to do it.
You might be a moron if you sign up for a pay service that features commercials and features shows you can watch for free.
What else to expect from Mother Zucker (NBC/U) and NewzCrap.
“Wait. So you pay for a service that still presents ads? Let me read that again.”
You mean like cable TV?
It’s not that I necessarily disagree that Hulu plus is a mess with pretty much nothing but downside. It’s the not the paying, it is
a) the cost – $10. I can get cable for $50/mo for tons of channels, sports, etc…and that includes a another crappy on-demad loser service.
b) content from only 3 studios
c) the CURRENT season only (at least from what I read)
This could be palatable if it were EVERY season for $10 with limited ads, but just the current one? FAIL.
These asshats will apparently never learn. They obviously are still tied too economically tied to the current system and do not want to piss off the cable companies yet. Some studio needs to grow some fucking balls and basically copy Netflix – $10 a month for all of their content, commercial free, whenever you want, served via internet-capable TVs, PS3, XBOX, the internet, etc. Just give the finger to the cable companies and ads, keep attracting people coming with new content, etc.