Hulu drops cost of ad-based tier, but hikes Live TV option to $44.99

Hulu on Wednesday announced significant changes to its pricing schemes, making it cheaper to get in the door of the streaming service, but more expensive for access to Live TV.

An ad-supported on-demand plan is dropping from $7.99 to $5.99 on Feb. 26. The No Ads plan will remain at $11.99, but Live TV is rising from $39.99 to $44.99 per month, making it definitively pricier than options like Sling TV or YouTube TV. Customers can go a step further with a No Ads/Live TV bundle costing $50.99.

To compensate somewhat, Hulu is reducing its Enhanced Cloud DVR and Unlimited Screens add-ons from $14.99 to $9.99, and offering them together for $14.98.

Hulu said the Live TV hike is justified by the addition of more channels in the past year, as well as technology upgrades including more compatible devices.

Conversely, lowering the entry fee may be a way of capturing people from Netflix, typically considered the leader in on-demand streaming. The company recently raised prices for its Standard and Premium subscriptions, hoping that its original shows and movies are enough of a draw to keep people paying.

Apple is poised to introduce its own video streaming service sometime this year, with over $1 billion invested in original programming. Initially it may make first-party shows free to watch on its hardware, counting on subscriptions to outside services to make money.

In the long term Apple is allegedly pursuing "tentpole" shows that could prop up a paid-only plan. That may be a challenge if it doesn't abandon family-friendly content rules — one of the appeals of services like Netflix or Hulu is the ability to watch uncensored content.

10 Comments

anantksundaram 20390 comments · 18 Years

About 5 years ago

They're all falling into the same, inevitable trap: "more is better" and "therefore, we will charge more."

It's only a matter of time before they look and price like cable companies.

davgreg 1046 comments · 9 Years

Soon to be controlled by Disney, Hulu wants the cable bundle pricing. Make book on AT&T and DTVN as well.

fasterquieter 90 comments · 9 Years

The only price I'd be willing to pay for the plan with ads is $0. I'd pay $1.99 for the plan without ads, considering they have about 2 shows a year I'd want to watch. Live TV for $45 is insane. Someone would need to pay me to watch that. I guess I'm not their target audience. I hope someone else is for their sake.

SpamSandwich 32917 comments · 19 Years

fasterquieter said:

The only price I'd be willing to pay for the plan with ads is $0. I'd pay $1.99 for the plan without ads, considering they have about 2 shows a year I'd want to watch. Live TV for $45 is insane. Someone would need to pay me to watch that. I guess I'm not their target audience. I hope someone else is for their sake.

Amazon/IMDb already does a free ad supported movie service and I can imagine they’ll continue to experiment with this.

http://www.aftvnews.com/imdb-freedive-is-amazons-new-free-ad-supported-movie-and-tv-streaming-service/

Any service that offers CNN as part of a subscription won’t get my money.

payeco 581 comments · 17 Years

fasterquieter said:

The only price I'd be willing to pay for the plan with ads is $0. I'd pay $1.99 for the plan without ads, considering they have about 2 shows a year I'd want to watch. Live TV for $45 is insane. Someone would need to pay me to watch that. I guess I'm not their target audience. I hope someone else is for their sake.

They had a deal on Cyber Monday for 12 months of the service with ads for $0.99 a month. We signed up because ‘why not’ at that price. I doubt we’re going to renew at the end of the year though, even with the reduced pricing.