According to the Hulu’s website, episodes from current TV seasons are expensive to make and license. The company also wants to compensate their content partners fairly.
From an article from Variety in 2013, Andy Forssell, the acting CEO and senior VP of content, at the time, said that the ad revenue “allows us to buy more content.”
On FOX.com and ABC.com you have to wait eight days to see new episodes, unless you sign in with a cable provider. On Amazon you can buy a season pass to watch episodes the next day. A season pass of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ will cost you $39.99 for HD. If you watch shows on CBS.com, you have to sit through a ton of ads, almost like you were watching it on TV.
Hulu also gives you access to all episodes from current seasons of certain shows and other shows it offers the entire series. Netflix can’t offer you that.
If you have cable, you can sign in through Hulu’s pay-TV partners to watch episodes. If you don’t have cable, $7.99 and a few ads are a small price to pay to have access to your favorite shows the day after they air.
It’s nice to binge watch shows on Netflix without commercials, but other than their original content, everything else is old.
Forssell also said to Variety: “Allowing people to pay more and not have advertising at all, I think that’s the right path long term. I’m a big believer in choice… I believe over time we should introduce an ad-free service.”
There’s no word on this service yet, but a lot of streaming cable options are popping up. Last year CBS started a subscription service for $5.99 a month, which you can watch live TV streaming on their website and have access to a library of over 6,500 episodes. Sling TV launched in February offering consumers a cheaper option to cable TV. Playstation Vue launched in certain cities last month and HBO just released a streaming service this week. Apple also announced a streaming TV service in the works.
HBO only has ads featuring their own content, but will all of these options be ad free? Probably not. Unfortunately, they can’t keep the cost low without ads.
With all these other options becoming available, will Hulu Plus still have a place in the streaming TV market? If you are looking for a low cost way to consume TV and don’t mind watching the show the next day, then Hulu Plus is a good option. But if you miss watching live TV, you might want to look at the growing choices on the market.
Just remember while you are watching those ads on Hulu Plus, you wouldn’t be able to watch that content without them.
