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'Hulu Plus' Unveiled With Support for iOS Devices: $9.99 Per Month

'Hulu Plus' now on iPad

The team behind Hulu have announced a 'Hulu Plus' service for third gen iPod touches, the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4 and the iPad. For $10 a month, you can have access to a large library of Hulu titles (however, not all of them).

Source: http://kotaku.com/5575618/hulu-plus-coming-to-playstation-3-in-july-xbox-360-in-2011

"Another reason to cancel the cable bill? The Internet-based group that offers network TV shows online for free revealed that Hulu Plus is coming to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, iPads and iPhones, for $10 a month, with ads.

The Hulu service offers full episodes, seasons and even series runs for many current and past hits from ABC FOX, and NBC.

Hulu Plus is available for third-generation iPod Touches, iPhones — models 3GS and 4 — and iPads now, according to the official Hulu blog. (We don't see it in the store yet; and be forewarned that you need iOS4). It comes to PlayStation 3s next month and is slated for the Xbox 360 in 2011. It is also slated to be available on some web-connected TVs. Currently, you have to request an invitation to be part of the service, according to a company blog post.

The iPad/iPhone version will work over WiFi or 3G connections.

The Xbox 360 version will be available only to paying Gold members of Xbox Live.


Full Current Seasons Available Through Hulu Plus Include:
24
30 Rock
American Dad!
Bones
Brothers & Sisters
Castle
Cougar Town
Dancing With The Stars
Desperate Housewives
Dollhouse
Family Guy
Find My Family
FlashForward
Friday Night Lights
Glee
Happy Town
House
Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Lie To Me
Losing It With Jillian
Lost
Mercy
Minute to Win It
Modern Family
Parenthood
Parks and Recreation
Private Practice
Saturday Night Live
Shark Tank
Supernanny
The Biggest Loser
The Cleveland Show
The Good Guys
The Office
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
The Wanda Sykes Show
Trauma


Full Season Runs Available Through Hulu Plus Include:
30 Rock
8 Simple Rules
Ally McBeal
American Dad!
Angel
Arrested Development
The Biggest Loser
Brothers & Sisters
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Dancing With The Stars
Desperate Housewives
Eli Stone
Grey's Anatomy
Heroes
Law and Order SVU
Legend of the Seeker
Life
Lipstick Jungle
Miami Vice
My Name is Earl
Parks and Recreation
Prison Break
Roswell
Quantum Leap
Reaper
Samantha Who?
Saturday Night Live
Supernanny
The OFfice
The Pretender
The X-Files
Ugly Betty
What About Brian

Video content through Hulu Plus will be offered in 720p. Hulu's news today did not include any specifics about where Hulu Plus will be available other than to note that expansion to more countries is planned. For now, expect U.S. support. Beyond that, we're not sure.
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Sorry if this has been posted before. If so, please delete this thread mods.
 
wytworm said:
I actually don't have a phone. Certainly not for watching videos on. That would be silly. Screen is inappropriate for SD let alone HD. If i had an ipad, what would i do, sit on my couch across from my 60 inch tv and watch the HD content on the ipad?
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How sad that not only do you apparently never leave the house, you can't even imagine anyone doing it.

And you don't seem to understand that this service lets you watch streaming 720p on that 60 inch TV as well.

Razeus said:
I see what torrents and free news on the internet has done to us. Everyone expects content to be free.
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Yeah, that came from the internet, of course before the internet came along, a way of watching TV for free but with ads never existed, right? :rolleyes:

Razeus said:
They don't want to pay for it. But they don't want ads either.

Straw man, I don't see that being argued at all. People are fine with free hulu with ads. And people are fine paying for TV content. The beef is paying for content AND having ads.

Razeus said:
ADS CAN'T PAY FOR IT ALL.
Click to expand...

If that's the case, then why did Hulu launch with that business model? I assume they did it to get their foot in the door, but they also set a precedent - if viewers expect content to be free (with ads) they have nobody to blame but themselves for contributing to that perception.

And if that's the case, how did broadcast TV (and even radio for that matter) manage to do it successfully for what, over half a century?
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poppe said:
I'd say that's very little in fact. Many 30 minute TV shows are actually only 21-22 minutes because the other 8 minutes are left for commercials and broadcasting stuff.

90 minutes of content had 3.5 minutes of commercials total - - Hulu
30 minutes of content had 8-9 minutes of commercials total - - TV
Click to expand...

Yes... but you forget to mention that with television, you have the opportunity to change channels while the commercials are playing, whereas with the Hulu player, you do not. This is a gaping hole in the argument of Cable TV having more commercial time.
 
poppe said:
90 minutes of content had 3.5 minutes of commercials total - - Hulu
30 minutes of content had 8-9 minutes of commercials total - - TV
Click to expand...

That's nice...except that you're comparing free content to paid content.

Full of Win said:
Yes... but you forget to mention that with television, you have the opportunity to change channels while the commercials are playing, whereas with the Hulu player, you do not. This is a gaping hole in the argument of Cable TV having more commercial time.
Click to expand...

Plus many number of people with cable have TIVO and never watch ANY ads.
 
Back in the Broadcast days you only had.

ABC,CBS,NBC and some independent stations. So you had many more eyeballs per channel.

Also Moviestars/TV Stars were not paid huge salaries like they are being paid.

Now you have hundreds of channels, internet,etc.. and overpaid actors which have diluted things.
 
milo said:
And if that's the case, how did broadcast TV (and even radio for that matter) manage to do it successfully for what, over half a century?
Click to expand...
It works for TV because TV can charge a ton more for ads than what internet sites like Hulu can. From what I've read Hulu predicts it will generate $200 million in ad revenue in 2010 (it's best ever and I think it's first profitable year) and Hulu is a leading, if not the leading, site for video based ad sales on the internet. By contrast the TV networks did something like $20 billion in ad sales in 2009 and that was in a down year. As has been mentioned before Hulu's costs are basically all wrapped up in distributing some of the most popular TV content around. If Hulu actually had to cover the development and marketing costs of the TV shows it streams it would go belly up in a heartbeat.


Lethal
 
Ads + $10. No, but thank you.
As for:
1. ads on DVD - stopped buying DVD then
2. ads in magazines - was buying very long but ditched 3 years ago
3. ads on cable - sorry, but i even don't have TV set for 6 years yet. So what's on TV? 20min of ads in every one hour? Socialist propaganda and ****** politics?
4. rent from Apple iT - stopped using, because even free Hulu (btw great service when for free) has better quality, much better

I stick with free Hulu, Netflix, paid VOD on internet (sport, movies) if quality good and hot wife each night....
 
bwillwall said:
It seems like netflix has things figured out pretty good. You pay, you get all the extras for free. Ad free. On almost any device. In fact, I might just up and boycot hulu now, ever since we got netflix I dont use it anyways. I mean $10 a month? On netflix i pay 9 and i can watch whatever wherever. I can get free DVDs and I can stream to my wii. I can watch for free on my wii, computers, and soon my iPod touch. anywhere theres wifi. With the dvds. Ad free. And look how rich they are... sorry hulu, oh wait no im not.
Click to expand...

I agree, it looks pretty poor sitting next to Netflix. However, Netflix doesn't have a lot of recent 'A' list content available to watch instantly, and most of their content is not in HD. They have generally older movies and 'B' movies, and limited television series. I still far prefer Netflix for the reasons you listed, but Hulu does offer some things Netflix does not (ie. recent 'A' list television content, in HD). Not having CBS involved really hurts them too.
 
jmorrison0722 said:
$9.99 a month with ads? Does it have all the content from Hulu.com? Sounds like they are getting greedy. Give me ads or give me a fee...not both.
Click to expand...

Why is this only a problem online? Every TV channel that isn't a broadcast network or the likes of HBO and Showtime is exactly the same.
 
LethalWolfe said:
It works for TV because TV can charge a ton more for ads than what internet sites like Hulu can. From what I've read Hulu predicts it will generate $200 million in ad revenue in 2010 (it's best ever and I think it's first profitable year) and Hulu is a leading, if not the leading, site for video based ad sales on the internet. By contrast the TV networks did something like $20 billion in ad sales in 2009 and that was in a down year. As has been mentioned before Hulu's costs are basically all wrapped up in distributing some of the most popular TV content around. If Hulu actually had to cover the development and marketing costs of the TV shows it streams it would go belly up in a heartbeat.


Lethal
Click to expand...

If the networks created the content they do with just ad revenue, they too would go belly up in all likehood.

The networks have a major sourse of income that you failed to note. They have a share of the content they create, so when they go into reruns, DVD sales, direct video or movies, they get a cut of the share. Part of the production cost for shows today is covered by shows that have not been on the air for years.
 
For all those saying that Netflix wins.

Netflix operates at the mercy of the content providers, many of whom who co-own hulu.

Just recently Netflix agreed to delay rentals on many new releases by four weeks, and TV seasons are already delayed until the DVD release.

The same is true for iTunes, Amazon, etc... Even though today I can miss an episode and buy it the next day on iTunes and take it with me on my iDevice. I can't get it on Netflix until much later. But if the content providers decide to only make content available on iTunes say a week later it won't work.

Hulu plus can fill that time hole, as well as providing the long tail of old archival stuff they do today.

I hope they don't strangle Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, etc... but the video provides have already been shown to be prone to self-destructive behavior.

B
 
maxijazz said:
Ads + $10. No, but thank you.
As for:
1. ads on DVD - stopped buying DVD then
2. ads in magazines - was buying very long but ditched 3 years ago
3. ads on cable - sorry, but i even don't have TV set for 6 years yet. So what's on TV? 20min of ads in every one hour? Socialist propaganda and ****** politics?
I stick with free Hulu, Netflix, paid VOD on internet (sport, movies) if quality good and hot wife each night....
Click to expand...

I agree completely - Their business model is about to take a dump on them
On top of ads- their licensing requires them to drop episodes of shows after a certain amount of time.
Even now, an episode that was aired on TV the night before takes 1-2 weeks for it to be on hulu. Overall, their licensing system sucks

Let FOX and their propaganda die - Hulu was a great idea with decent programing (video encoding) but is just another failed attempt at TV

BTW - TV is dead, thats why the ads have overtaken the content over the last few years. Nobody can develop a decent show now a days, and the business model of TV says that if a show is a HIT- then ads can hit a bigger audience.

I cant remember the last time i consumed any type of media through a TV - oh yeah, at a bar!
 
marksman said:
That is of course, unless they have just given up on advertising altogether. IN which case all of this stuff is either going to get MUCH more expensive, or significantly cheaper in quality.
Click to expand...

Or, we put our clever minds together and figure out a way to pay for quality in a different way.
 
It's nice and all but how come I can't watch what I can for free online, on the iPad?
 
Well...

If this works outside the United states I am getting it and canceling netflix. My family rarely uses netflix these days, and when we rent movies we do it on iTunes and very rarely amazon with tivo.

I travel a lot and it gets tough keeping up with shows, and my present solution is iTunes. Would enjoy hulu for the $10 a month.
 
Full of Win said:
Yes... but you forget to mention that with television, you have the opportunity to change channels while the commercials are playing, whereas with the Hulu player, you do not. This is a gaping hole in the argument of Cable TV having more commercial time.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry I forgot you don't have Tabbed browsing on your computer? Or that while you are watching it streaming from your xbox, you can't mute it and open up any other of your media devices to do what every you'd like while the commercial passes.

So no I didn't forget to mention that point, because it isn't a point really at all. You are complaining about one thing, and while it is true that you can switch channels while a commercial is going on, it does not negate the fact that your original complaint still isn't valid when comparing TV commercial running total running times per show to Hulu's commercial total running times per show.

milo said:
That's nice...except that you're comparing free content to paid content.

Plus many number of people with cable have TIVO and never watch ANY ads.
Click to expand...

Yes and no. I'm more comparing paid cable to paid internet content. I'd say the majority pay for their cable subscription and are not getting it by the free broadcasting.

Even still if you want to go down that route, my original argument to his complaint about how many commercials he had to sit through on a 90 minute hulu showing, still stands because I'm am actually just arguing for hulu in the general sense. If you want to do FREE ad only supported content vs Hulu's FREE ad only supported content you still win with less commercials on Hulu.

Now if you want to look at Hulu's paid subscription total amount of commercial time per show vs paying for cable and its total amount of commercial time per show, Hulu still has less commercials.

- - -

While I understand both your arguments, they both do not change the fact that his complaint about how many commercials he has to sit through on Hulu is actually not as bad as how many he'd have to sit through using TV.

When it comes down to it, Hulu has less commercials per show in terms of total running time. Whether you like Hulu or TV better, or how you skip through the commercials per platform, that is not what I was arguing against.
 
coasterswim said:
TV seasons on disc are delayed until the discs are released. Hmmm... you may be on to something here!
Click to expand...

haha that's funny, but I think he just meant that recently Netflix agreed to delay DVD releases of new movie titles so they could have access to more streaming titles, and they have also agreed to not have the ability to stream many TV show's days after airing, and must wait until that season has been released on DVD before they can have the option to stream.
 
No matter what they all have their downsides and their upsides. Netflix works for me and Hulu subscription will work for me.

Some will only have cable.
Some will only have netflix.
Some will have none.
Some will have all.

Just depends on the needs.
 
milo said:
How sad that not only do you apparently never leave the house, you can't even imagine anyone doing it.

And you don't seem to understand that this service lets you watch streaming 720p on that 60 inch TV as well.
Click to expand...

Lets me pay to watch streaming 720p ads that i can't skip through. Whereas i don't have to do it now. A solution in search of a problem. Sort of like the ipad itself.
 
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