Hulu's new price plans make on demand binging cheaper, Live TV more costly

As promised, Hulu on Tuesday rolled out a new price structure that makes streaming on demand content less expensive, but ups prices for viewers looking for live over-the-top broadcasts.

With the change, Hulu now starts at $5.99 per month for a basic subscription plan that includes access to a slate of cable television shows, popular series, movies and original content. The new price represents a $2 savings compared to the company's most recent basic offering.

Along with the price cut, Hulu with Live TV is moving from $39.99 to $44.99 per month, making it one of the more pricey over-the-top broadcast viewing solutions. Hulu's version comes with 60 live and on-demand channels, including news and sports programming that complement a broad streaming library.

Pricing for the provider's No Ads tier remains unchanged at $11.99 per month, while No Ads plus Live TV comes out to $50.99 a month.

Users have the ability to add on premium cable channels like HBO, Showtime and Cinemax , as well as DVR capabilities and multi-screen viewing, for additional monthly fees.

Hulu announced the updated subscription strategy in January, just days after market competitor Netflix raised its prices to an all-time high. The two streaming firms are in a race to secure a solid subscriber base as new competitors enter the field.

In November, Disney announced its own branded service, Disney+, will debut in late 2019 carrying a trove of content that includes 21st Century Fox properties. New straight-to-streaming original series are also planned for the service.

NBCUniversal is rumored to enter the market in 2020.

Apple, too, is widely expected to jump into the streaming game this year with a slate of original programming contracted from established Hollywood directors, actors and producers.

Recent reports suggest the tech giant aims to unveil the as-yet-unannounced product alongside a news subscription service at a star-studded event in March. Early rumblings suggested the video service would arrive in April, though more recent rumors point to a debut this fall.

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5 Comments

seanismorris 8 Years · 1624 comments

About 5 years ago

No wonder Hulu is a money pit for its owners. They offer the exact opposite of what people want.

Get those bunny ears out people!

firelock 11 Years · 241 comments

I was a early cord-cutter, back in 2010, and back then it was really difficult to get the programs that I wanted to watch. I basically used Netflix and I bought a lot of shows on iTunes. Now we are in the golden age of streaming with not only lots of options like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc., but incredible content being delivered at an unprecedented rate. However, the proliferation of streaming channels is getting ridiculous and subscription fatigue is real and about to get much worse. One of the reasons that I like Hulu is that it consolidates so many broadcast channels into one spot. But what is going to happen when Disney’s streaming service debuts? And then Apple’s? How many subscriptions am I going to need to watch all of th content that I want to see? Not to mention music subscriptions and software subscriptions like Office 365, Adobe CC, and Dropbox?

MacPro 18 Years · 19845 comments

firelock said:

I was a early cord-cutter, back in 2010, and back then it was really difficult to get the programs that I wanted to watch. I basically used Netflix and I bought a lot of shows on iTunes. Now we are in the golden age of streaming with not only lots of options like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc., but incredible content being delivered at an unprecedented rate. However, the proliferation of streaming channels is getting ridiculous and subscription fatigue is real and about to get much worse. One of the reasons that I like Hulu is that it consolidates so many broadcast channels into one spot. But what is going to happen when Disney’s streaming service debuts? And then Apple’s? How many subscriptions am I going to need to watch all of th content that I want to see? Not to mention music subscriptions and software subscriptions like Office 365, Adobe CC, and Dropbox?

I'd also ask where will we get the time to watch all these options? It's true that sans ads it is easy to watch two or three shows a night or a show and a movie and still have a large part of your evening free but I am finding the number of shows I would like to see far outnumbers the time I am willing to allocate. I only have Netflix and Amazon Prime and once a year I pay for a month of HBO. That's it and I am already way beyond saturation point in options. Not that I am complaining, it truly is an amazing time to be a cord cutter. On rare occasions, I have to suffer regular cable TV I cannot believe the time wasted on ad breaks.

jbdragon 10 Years · 2312 comments

MacPro said:

firelock said:

I was a early cord-cutter, back in 2010, and back then it was really difficult to get the programs that I wanted to watch. I basically used Netflix and I bought a lot of shows on iTunes. Now we are in the golden age of streaming with not only lots of options like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc., but incredible content being delivered at an unprecedented rate. However, the proliferation of streaming channels is getting ridiculous and subscription fatigue is real and about to get much worse. One of the reasons that I like Hulu is that it consolidates so many broadcast channels into one spot. But what is going to happen when Disney’s streaming service debuts? And then Apple’s? How many subscriptions am I going to need to watch all of th content that I want to see? Not to mention music subscriptions and software subscriptions like Office 365, Adobe CC, and Dropbox?

I'd also ask where will we get the time to watch all these options? It's true that sans ads it is easy to watch two or three shows a night or a show and a movie and still have a large part of your evening free but I am finding the number of shows I would like to see far outnumbers the time I am willing to allocate. I only have Netflix and Amazon Prime and once a year I pay for a month of HBO. That's it and I am already way beyond saturation point in options. Not that I am complaining, it truly is an amazing time to be a cord cutter. On rare occasions, I have to suffer regular cable TV I cannot believe the time wasted on ad breaks.

I have my Antenna for most of the TV I want and Netflix, and I can't find the time as it is the watch much of Netflix. They can keep creating their own services until everyone has their own and few sign up for them. Prices are to much. When it comes down to really is, What you can't watch, you can't miss!!!