Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins chalked up the exceptions to rights held by studios on select series. “They have other commitments that they couldn’t free them up for a complete commercial-free offering,” he said, adding that the service will clearly delineate the exceptions to users before they stream those series.
Other series that will have pre-roll include four ABC series: “How to Get Away with Murder,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Once Upon a Time,” “Agents of SHIELD,” and an NBC series, “Grimm.”
Hulu is making the move in response to subscriber complaints voiced in various forms of consumer research about having to pay yet still watch ads. Earlier this month, a Parks Associates survey found that half of Hulu subscribers have canceled service over the past 12 months, compared to just 9% for Netflix over the same span.
The new subscription option brings Hulu in line with its commercial-free rivals Netflix, which remains several dollars cheaper than Hulu depending on which rate its own subscribers pay, and Amazon Prime, which charges $99 per year for access to its content library in addition to free two-day shipping.
From the article "Hulu Adds (Mostly) Ad-Free Subscription Service" by Andrew Wallenstein.
The lower end of the streaming video market is one of the fastest growing segments for the company, Roku says, both in its line of relatively inexpensive Roku TVs and its separate streaming media devi...
With more of us now using streaming video services during the COVID-19 pandemic—about three-quarters of all U.S. households subscribe to at least one streaming service, according to research from Park...
Harry Wang, senior research director for Parks Associates says that Apple is “known to be searching for the next $100 billion opportunity, and the gigantic healthcare industry is ripe for technology d...
Even among U.S. households with broadband service, newly released market research from Parks Associates found that less than 30 percent of respondents were familiar with where to buy smart-home produc...
