Everyone on the Hulu team shares three things in common. I’ll cover two of those immediately. We’ll get to the last one at the end of this post.
First, we are proud to say that we love TV shows. TV shows entertain billions of people across the globe and are among the most durable, high quality forms of storytelling in our society. TV shows play a significant role in billions of people’s daily routines.
Second, we believe that the TV show experience — while already great — has the opportunity to be even better. We have great conviction that consumers should be able to watch the TV shows they’d like to watch, whenever they want to watch them, wherever they want to watch them. The Hulu team has taken that conviction and built a very special service we’re calling Hulu Plus. The Hulu Plus service is our answer to the question of “What if your favorite TV shows loved you back?”
Hulu Plus is not a replacement for Hulu.com. Hulu Plus is a new, revolutionary ad-supported subscription product that is incremental and complementary to the existing Hulu service. For almost all of the current broadcast shows on our service, Hulu Plus offers the full season. Every single episode of the current season will be available, not just a handful of trailing episodes. Now there’s never a bad time to jump in on a hot new show like Modern Family (which I recommend highly). From Family Guy to Glee, from The Office to 30 Rock, from Grey’s Anatomy to Desperate Housewives, from Parks & Recreation to Parenthood, from House to Saturday Night Live, and dozens of other hits, the best time to jump in on any series is any time, and with any episode, that’s right for you.
As a Hulu Plus subscriber, you’ll now also have access to back seasons or full runs of some of TV’s greatest shows. All nine seasons of The X-Files. All three seasons of Arrested Development. Ten seasons of Law and Order: SVU. All five seasons of Ally McBeal. Seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and three seasons of Roswell. Every episode ever of Grey’s Anatomy and Desperate Housewives. Classic skits from the first five and most recent five seasons of Saturday Night Live. The list goes on. This is all on top of hundreds of shows already on Hulu.com today. It’s a treasure chest in the cloud for TV lovers.
How can someone watch all these TV shows? The only possible way is if someone could pull up these shows wherever they were, on whatever device they happened to have available. That’s why we’re excited to announce that Hulu Plus subscribers can now watch their favorites through more than just the browser on their Mac or PC.
Let’s start in your living room. You’re sitting down for dinner, and you’d like to pull Hulu up on your TV. Today you’d have to plug a computer into the TV and try to connect the audio from your computer to your sound system. It’s certainly doable, but it’s not as easy as it could be. Starting today, Hulu Plus subscribers who own select Samsung Internet-connected TVs and Blu-ray players can download a Hulu Plus application from the Samsung app store and start streaming Hulu Plus directly.
Now let’s say you migrate from the living room to your den or bedroom or patio where you don’t have a TV. You can always pull up Hulu Plus on your laptop, but starting today you can access Hulu content via Wi-Fi or 3G on another device: the Apple iPad. I’ve been watching Hulu on my iPad for several weeks now, and I’ve watched more TV through the iPad than any other device.
Now let’s head out of the house and onto the road. Wouldn’t it be nice if, while you were waiting for your coffee order at the local cafe, you could finish watching that episode you started watching that morning on your iPad? Starting today, if you’re a Hulu Plus subscriber and you own an iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 or third-generation iPod Touch, you can.
The Hulu Plus app on the iPhone streams over 3G and Wi-Fi. It’s TV shows in the palm of your hand. A spare five minutes will never be as boring again. You can start watching a show on your HDTV one night, pick up where you left off on your laptop at lunch, watch another chunk on the bus ride home on your iPhone, and finish watching in bed on your iPad. The time to watch your favorite shows is any time you want.
These are the devices shipping with Hulu Plus today. But this is just the first step in our mission to bring you TV wherever you are. We are already hard at work on porting Hulu Plus to other devices and platforms, with PlayStation 3 coming soon. But that’s a story for another day.
More content. More devices. But that’s not all. We want to take full advantage of beautiful display devices like your HDTV connected to your Samsung Blu-ray player, or your iPad. So for all Hulu Plus subscribers, we’ll now stream all native HD content in 720p high definition.
The last question, and an obvious one, is how much this costs. We wanted Hulu Plus to be priced for as many people as possible. We’re thrilled to be able to bring all of this to you for the price of just $9.99 a month.
How do you sign up for Hulu Plus? Starting today, we’re issuing invitations to become a Hulu Plus subscriber. If you’re interested, you can request an invitation here. To ensure we’re offering the best experience for all our Hulu Plus customers, we’ll be sending out invitations in waves [hint: if you follow Hulu on Twitter ( www.twitter.com/hulu) or “Like” Hulu on Facebook ( www.facebook.com/hulu), we’ll be handing out invites to a random set from each of those groups from time to time over the coming months]. We’ll be sending out as many invitations as we can each week, and as soon as we’re ready, we’ll remove the need for an invitation and start bringing in new subscribers without delay.
At the start, I mentioned I’d come back to the third thing that all of us at Hulu have in common. That third thing is this: we believe that any lasting solution to the challenge of making TV show discovery and viewing dramatically easier has to work for all three of our customers, and those are our end users, our advertisers, and our content suppliers.
With Hulu Plus, we believe we’ve met that goal. For our end users, we’re offering them the most convenient way to access their favorite shows, on devices they love, in high definition, at a fair price. For our advertisers, who allow us to keep our Hulu Plus price low with the support of ad revenue, we offer one of the world’s most effective advertising platforms, with the ability to speak effectively to users across a variety of devices, anywhere they happen to be. And finally, for our content partners, we offer revenues that compensate them fairly for bearing the cost of producing the shows we love.
Is our work done? Not even close. There are more shows to license, more countries to expand into, and more product features to build. And we will.
But for today, we just want to share our latest project with you. We think it’s pretty great. We hope you do, too.
Jason Kilar
CEO, Hulu
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You guys this will never work make it free and with advertisements it will work but nobody is going to subscribe to this for 10 a month when there is Netflix and their service includes better videos than just whats on tv.
Gosh i love hulu i need an invite
Thanks for making TV watching easy again! With conflicting schedules, full DVRs my household has always had to pick and choose which TV shows we’re able to watch. My only questions are: 1) Is there going to be a wait between air date and availability to watch on Hulu.com to Plus members? For instance, some TV shows have a weeks wait after the air date before we’re able to watch as free Hulu members. Also, does that plus membership cover everyone in the house? Sure, we can all watch together on the TV but what about on our separate iPhones? Can two people, from separate iPhones, be connected to Hulu Plus at the same time?
Thanks again!
Brian
Do you get to see the current episode right away or do you have still have to wait anywhere from a day to over a week before it is available? Everybody at the office is talking about the latest episode of Justified from the night before while I’m sitting at my desk with my fingers in my ears yelling, “LaLaLaLa” so as not to spoil it since it doesn’t air on Hulu until NINE DAYS LATER!
Also, it is great to hear about the iPhone and iPad applications though unfortunate that AT&T also announced their data caps which watching TV shows will certainly make you go over.
Will you be able to watch the current episode the day it airs? Maybe I missed it above.
Definitely looking forward to trying this out. Looks very promising
Giving away any preview accounts?
You planing on giving away some of the preview accounts anytime soon?
I really, really like Hulu. We don’t have a TV now because we like Boxee, Hulu, and Netflix. I was impressed when Hulu came out because it felt far more web savvy than TV demonstrated being before. I would say it’s good enough now that I would pay for access to more shows. But, I’m not happy to hear there will still be ads.
I didn’t grow up paying for ABC, CBS, NBC, etc. so, I relate to the ad supported content model. But this is double dipping and it isn’t very desirable.
Once you get it working on the PS3 you have a deal and not before.
I’d happily pay $10\month if you included content such as, Always Sunny in Philly. This is a great product and a very reasonable price, if it simply had more content. The current offering seems to target women and homosexuals. Please offer some shows for the guys.
Will it be only for the USA?
I might consider subscribing if I could access this via my AppleTV.
AWESOME.
Big updates!
I’ve been a big Hulu fan for a couple years, so I offer this as just one fan’s constructive feedback. Last week I switched back to purchasing Burn Notice from iTunes, because of the increased number of ads on Hulu and the recent 8 day delay on new episodes.
Is there any chance of a Hulu++ ? It’d cost more, but have fewer ads, and episodes would be available much sooner.
Are there any plans for Boxee, Android or Windows Media Center?
What about PS3 support?
Does that mean you’ll have to pay a monthly fee to use the iPod app? Or will you be able to view the non-Plus content with the app for free?
Why would anyone want to pay $10 bucks a month for the privilege of watching commercials? Wouldn’t it make more sense to have tiered pricing, with a tier that one could choose to pay for no commercials? The content is already paid for. In most cases many times over.
Good luck with this business model.
I was with you, until you said “ad-supported”.
Make a version that has NO ads, and works on a Tivo, and I’ll likely become a member..
There is no point to this subscription, because the shows STILL have advertising in them. The only way I would pay $10/month to use Hulu is if I could get the shows ad-free. I will not pay for advertising; it is why I do not have cable. I prefer Hulu’s short ads to broadcast TV’s more advertising than shows, though lately Hulu is ramping advertising up. I guess soon I will be waiting for shows to come out on DVD.
Give me a truely seamless experiance by letting me access it via the device of my choice, using XBMC or Boxee, and I’m sold, otherwise I’ll pass
This is a worthless subscription! The only way I would PAY to watch Hulu is if the shows were Ad-FREE. I do NOT want to pay to watch advertising just for the privilege of being able to get whole seasons at a time. Forget it.
How many individuals are allowed on one subscription? For example my wife and I both have an IPhone. Can we both use the same subscription, or do we both need our own subscription?
I don’t get it. Why should I pay for anything if I still have to sit through ads?
why would i pay for ads?
Netflix — 8.99/month, no ads.
US only as usual?
$9.99 a month to watch TV shows is too much. Why did you think that price was the sweet spot? And a subscription model? Should I cancel my cable TV and use HULU instead? I think that people are already paying too a month for all their other expenses. Honestly I don’t think it will be successful, as much as I was looking forward to watching a TV show now and then, I won’t be subscribing. I don’t see the value in it. The only way this will be successful is if it is ad supported and free to the public. Most of us tech savvy people already use netflix to stream content to our devices. Well good luck.
Hulu is great, as a free service I cannot complain at all. But if I were to start paying for it, I might find some grounds for complaint.
First of all, I’m willing to watch some ads if it keeps the price down, but I absolutely despise being forced to watch the same ad twice during one show. Network television has long subjected us to this, and that more than anything else annoys me on a visceral level. I can’t really even explain it but somehow I find it insulting. If you want your version of TV to love me please quit doing that.
Also, will you offer any kind of service availability guarantees? At somepoint a while back I was running into an issue where after choosing a show and pushing play, it would take 5 minutes or more for the show to start. Now that particular problem seems to be fixed, but how will you handle future issues? Say I’ve freed up an evening and I have it mind to watch some show, if for some reason your service isn’t working I’m actually going to be a little bit more than just $10 disappointed. I’d like a service availability guarantee that has some teeth to it, not just a $10 refund.
Ashley
I’ve been waiting to hear this news! can’t wait to start watching Hulu in HD on my TV through either my PS3 or 360. ^_^
My old HTPC couldn’t push full screen flash video out at a decent rez so I’ve been limited from using Hulu as my main TV source until now.
Why no love for iPod Touch G2 owners though? My little 8GB should be able to handle streaming video without choking on it. T_T
allow paid subscription for outside US
The “invitation” model worked well for Gmail/Google Voice, etc. because they are free products, I do not think that it’s going to work well for you.
The price point given your content (and including advertisements on top of it) is simply going to be a non-starter for a lot of people, including myself.
Best of luck to you though.
I would get this if Hulu was in Canada… so come to Canada already! wtf
When are you going on Hulu Plus some old TV shows at ‘Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea’ . I watch both old and new shows. I would not subscribe to Hulu Plus if the old shows were not there…
Sorry – a subscription fee AND ads? No thanks.
Your initial realease of Hulu Plus is a nice start, but I’m afraid that is falls miserably short. You’ve left off what I believe is a very imporant audience: those of us who do not and probably will not own any Apple mobile products. Specifically, the Android market.
Also, do you have plans to support oher internet-connected TV’s, i.e., Sony Internet Video devices, etc.?
The one feature I was really hoping for in a paid Hulu subscription isn’t listed here:
No more than a 24 hour delay on all new shows.
It’s pretty silly to consider paying for Hulu if I still have to dodge my coworkers talking about shows like The Biggest Loser for 7 days. 24 hours is reasonable, but a week is ridiculous. I know that decision is wrapped up in the hands of the content providers, but it’s one that will likely keep me from being a paid subscriber until it’s taken care of.
Paying a subscription fee for DRMed content that includes ads? No thanks.
I am wondering what will happen to the selection of older TV shows currently available on Hulu as full seasons before today’s announcement. Will those remain free or will those go under Hulu Plus?
I really really hope you guys make this available for blackberry since not every one wants an iPhone (especially since the new one looses the signal when you hold it).
This is great – I can see using this on my new iPhone 4 during commutes! Now if you’d work with TiVo, too… :)
“Hulu Plus is a new, revolutionary ad-supported subscription product that is incremental and complementary to the existing Hulu service.”
“We’re thrilled to be able to bring all of this to you for the price of just $9.99 a month.”
So I pay you $9.99 a month to watch television shows WITH advertisements included. Oh thank you so much. Jackasses.
I notice that there are no non-Apple cell phones in the list of upcoming mobile devices that are supported with Hulu Plus. Are there any plans on the horizon for Plus support on other mobile devices? I don’t own an iPhone/Pod/Pad and mobile viewing is a good chunk of what Hulu Plus offers. An Android app would be great (no one would have to switch carriers to get Hulu Plus on a mobile).
Jason, you guys are going backwards. You have a great balanced service online but this announcement is just lame. I’m ok with paying for a service, for more content, but no way will i pay for something that technology enables for free as a subscription. If there are development costs associated to developing an app, i will pay for this, but only once. I will not pay to access content that is already streamed on the web for free over a different channel (for a privilege, are you kidding me). Shame on you for supporting these antiquated business models. You guys have to work hard to stop content from being shown on other channels than a browser, this is just silly. Please, release the standard content over as many channels as you can, I’ll then be happy to pay for a subscription for a premium service, but surely not for this.
You lost me at “ad-supported subscription product”. if a customer pays $120 per year there shouldn’t be ads. And 720p is not really high definition, it’s medium resolution.
While this news is nice to hear why is there a gap between PS3 and Xbox release date? Did Sony cough up more dough to get it early or something?
So let me get this right…you want us to pay 10 bucks a month and STILL watch commercials??
Come one with the double dipping already.
Paying for ads? No thanks. Sorry Hulu, you used to be better than torrents but now you’re not.
So…do Hulu Plus people get the Daily Show back…?
[...] at 2:30PM Hulu has finally announced their long-rumored subscription service, and it's a doozy. It's called Hulu Plus. For US$9.99 per month, you'll get you ad-supported access to the full current seasons of most [...]
Fail
Sorry Hulu, seems like a rip off. For $2 less I get everything they’re talking about and more with my netflix subscription. You’d have to be pretty stupid to pay more money for less stuff. But, there are plenty of stupid people out there. *sigh*
“Hulu Plus is a new, revolutionary ad-supported subscription product…”
it is not ad-supported if i have to pay for it. it may be ad-suplimited but not ad-supported.
$9.99 per month is reasonable for HD, next day turn around, and ad-free content. Paying and still having to watch ads is not, no double dipping. This is part of what made people hate cable.
While I don’t expect this comment to be approved, I want you guys at Hulu to read it at least once. I spent a lot of time giving reviews on shows, making feedback selections on your advertisers, did all of the surveys that were ever released, and then had my favorite shows all reduced to 5 seasons only for my troubles. Now, if I fork out ten bucks a month, I can have all of the older seasons back. Streaming to my TV or portable player isn’t my cup of tea, I have no TV or Ipad or anything else. Just my disabled, unable to walk self and my home computer. Fine. Charge the 10 bucks I’m sure you’ll get a lot of people to pay. I won’t be doing so. And I’ll never write another review or make any more commercial feedbacks. In fact, I won’t be logging back in again. Thank you for the programming you used to do, but no thanks for the fee-mongering. 10 bucks a month? I am sure your advertisers could have covered it without blinking twice. What is peanuts to them is a lot to somebody like me. Bye.
For viewers who must have access to closed captions in order to enjoy programming, will there be full access to captions on all the devices used for Hulu Plus, including the iPod Touch? Will there be a publicized policy of providing closed captions for all the programs on Hulu Plus? (If not, deaf and hard of hearing customers won’t get full value out of Hulu Plus.)
This is an excellent start at a decent price, though I’m not ready to subscribe just yet. Still too many things missing to make it worthwhile. I know y’all are working on more so here’s my hit list of things that would make it more compelling:
Places:
* Wii console version – There’s a lot of us out there that don’t have X-Boxen and PS3s
* Android – … and we’re not all Apple fanboys either (though I do have a MacBook)
* Google TV – Yeah, I know it’s not out yet but if you’re gonna go the Android route, this seems to just make sense.
Stuff:
* Daily Show/Colbert – I hope the extra revenue will help you strike a deal with Viacom (those greedy bastiches!)
* Conan O’Brien v3.0 – Not seen an announcement on whether this is on your queue, but I miss that crimson quaffed freak. Be nice to see other Turner properties here too.
Again, good stuff! Looking forward to how this develops.
The question that comes to mind is, what about multi-device households. Let’s say I want to watch a Hulu Plus show on my iPad/iPhone, and my wife wants to watch a show on the 360 or PC. Is this one account or two? Other than that, this is something I’ve been looking forward to with great anticipation!
So… you’re charging $9.99 plus it’s ad supported? How about $9.99 with no ads.
So it’s like Netflix . . . without movies . . . but with advertisments . . . and it’s more expensive? Meh.
Also this comment form is showing the e-mail address of the previous commenter. Fail.
Ten bucks a month and it still has ads? What a complete fail.
This is a complete nonstarter with “there will still be ads.”
I won’t pay for anything that has advertising.
Please let me pay you more money so I don’t have to see ads. Ads are a complete deal breaker in a paid system.
Ten dollars, plus app fees. For TV with ads? Will the TV shows still be super quiet and the ads super noisy? I think I’ll keep my Netflix account.
So, if I understand correctly: I would have to pay to watch ad supported shows. If you made it so I would not see ads I would consider it. You are so close, yet so far.
With Hulu Plus be COMMERCIAL FREE?
Awesome, the only platform you seem to have not mentioned is Android. I really hope you guys are working hard on getting Hulu onto the Android Market, what could be more glorious than Hulu on those massive screens of the Evo and Droid X??
$10/month for a still ad-supported service is horrible. If there are ads, it should be at most $2/month
will there still be the 5 trailing episodes available for free?
Hi guys,
This is amazing!
But how about Geolocation? This will be an exclusive service for some countries or it will be open to the rest of the world.
Thanks in advance ;)
Jason – does this mean that episodes such as GLEE, that are currently available on hulu.com’s online free service (with expiration dates) will NO LONGER be available AT ALL since the current season pass would be available on Hulu Plus? Or, does this mean that GLEE will continue to be available for X-number of episodes at a time (with expiration dates) *AND* that those who have Hulu Plus would NOT be subject to the expiration date while having access to the season in full (instead of 5 episodes at a time/etc). Am I understanding this right? (Broken down, I want to know if I have to have Hulu Plus to watch the current season of GLEE online?)
Fantastic, we get to pay $10 a month *and* watch ads? What a bargain! :\
I think the only thing that is revolutionary about Hulu Plus is that you are charging a subscription fee while still showing ads on the internet. I’m okay with that on my TV, but not on the internet, and I’m betting most people feel the same way. Pay walls never work, period. Normally you charge a subscription fee to remove the ads, but instead your charging and seeing having ads. I understand that it probably isn’t Hulu’s fault, but I’m betting this never takes off, as soon as people realize they still have to sit through ads. Just my two cents.
I don’t see a mention of Xbox360. Is that still in the works?
Call me when you have android and/or boxee support. I’ll sign up the same day :). You do reallize there are more android phones out there than iphones right?
Paid service AND Adds? No thank you! Sticking with Netflix.
“Hulu Plus is a new, revolutionary ad-supported subscription product that is incremental and complementary to the existing Hulu service.”
$9.99/month plus any applicable taxes and there will still be advertisements? That is incredibly backwards.
So now that it’s a chargeable service, will it finally be available worldwide? Or is most of the planet’s (and internet’s) population still left out?
“Hulu Plus is a new, revolutionary ad-supported subscription product that is incremental and complementary to the existing Hulu service.”
$9.99/month plus any applicable taxes, and the service will still have advertisements? That is incredibly backwards.
If an Android app was supported I would be interested.
Can we get Hulu Plus on Panasonic’s Vieracast? Please don’t limit this to Samsung TVs only.
how much will it cost, and how will we go about paying for it?
When do you expect Android support?
No Fringe (full), no The Shield, no Dexter, no Burn Notice (latest), no The Wire, no Sopranos, no The Tudors, NO DEAL!
PS. I love Hulu, but if you want fans to pay, you got to offer more than just a few less commercials.
Fail. Right idea, very wrong price. If it’s ad-supported, why $10 per month? I’d pay maybe $4 or $5 per month to suffer through ads mainly for the convenience of being able to watch hulu from my iPad, but $10 per month is way too steep.
Why only Apple devices? What About Android, Blackberry, WebOS, WinMo…
No Android? No thanks.
\Please explain this to me.
Why would ANYONE want to pay a monthly fee for Hulu when tversity lets you stream Hulu to your XBox or other system already? And for only a one time fee mind you.
Will shows become available immediately after airing to Hulu Plus customers?
I usually don’t make it home in time to watch a show live on TV, but I want to watch it sometime that night.
“Every single episode of the current season will be available, not just a handful of trailing episodes.”
When will episodes hit the Hulu servers? For example, if I live on the east coast and House begins at 9:00 eastern, when does the episode become available to me on my iPhone/Xbox/computer if I’m a Hulu Plus subscriber?
“ad-supported subscription”
So I pay every month AND still have to watch the commercials?
NO.
I like the new features of Hulu Plus. I like the mobile devices. I like the full seasons. I like the full series options. I’d gladly pay $9.99 a month, even $19.99 a month would be a pretty good deal.
But I refuse to pay someone to show me ads. I won’t do it for cable TV, or magazines, or newspapers. And I’m certainly not going to do it for Hulu Plus.
This is great but will the shows on Hulu Plus have closed captions like the ones on Hulu.com do? I’m asking specifically for the iPad, iPhone, PS3 applications, etc.
Overall this is awesome, and I’ve very excited to be able to (eventually) see HD Hulu content on my PS3! I’m a bit disappointed to hear this *paid service” will be ad-supported though. I feel that if I pay for a service, I shouldn’t be subjected to third party advertising through it. This is a real opportunity to shine and stand way above the cable companies.
Please make an andoid app too! thanks!
Wait…I’m gonna pay a monthly premium fee and STILL have to watch ads?
Not interested.
Would love it if you make a hulu app for tthe ps3. :) Would be so awsome instead of using playon. :).
This is wonderful news, and I cannot wait to try it out. I will definitely be leaving behind my Cable subscription.
One thing I wish HuluPlus offered: more mobile platforms. Please consider developing an Android app!
Will you be able to offer shows from Travel Channel or Food Network? Or Bravo? LIke Top Chef, Chopped, or Man vs. Food? If so, I’ll buy this, if not, I’ll pass.
“ad-supported subscription product”
No dice.