Thoughts on Hulu Plus

After countless rumors and leaks, yesterday Hulu finally announced the first wave of its new premium service — Hulu Plus.

The new service will cost $9.99/month and grant you access to a deeper library of content than what the current free version of Hulu offers. In other words, you'll not only get current shows and episodes, but entire back catalogs with every episode from every season. And here's where it really gets interesting, Hulu Plus will be available as a free app for the Apple iPhone and iPad, for the Microsoft Xbox 360 (coming in 2011), and Sony Playstation 3. In addition, it will be built into select Sony and Vizio television sets and Blu-ray players. (At launch, only Samsung TVs with access to the Samsung App Store will be able to download the Hulu Plus App.)

The free version of Hulu will still be around, but for serious TV junkies, Hulu Plus promises hours of TV available any time from a handful of mobile and living room devices. However, I personally think Hulu Plus is a horrible deal. Here's why:

Advertising
The current version of Hulu has embedded ads, albeit short and not as many as traditional TV, but it's a free service, so you really can't complain. Hulu Plus on the other hand is not free and yet it will also include ads. Now you could say, "I pay for cable TV, and I still get ads," but cable TV gives you access to tons of shows from various networks. Hulu Plus will only grant you access to shows from ABC, Fox, and NBC. (And with ABC wanting to break off and do its own thing, I wonder how that will affect Hulu's content.)

Value/Money
Personally, I think $9.99/month is expensive. Very expensive. That's $119.88/year that you could otherwise pocket. What bothers me the most is that Hulu Plus is not an answer for cable cutters. Like I said above, the majority of content will come from three networks so if you're a fan of Iron Chef, International House Hunters, or Dinner Impossible, Hulu Plus is essentially useless. (And let's not get started on sports, news, or music stations, none of which you'll find on Hulu Plus.)

Furthermore, do you really need access to every episode of 30 Rock, Family Guy, The Office, etc. That's a lot of content and I bet most subscribers won't get the most from their money. Instead, you'll end up paying your monthly cable bill and paying an additional $10/mo. for Hulu Plus. You're being milked for access to content you most likely won't watch. And if you do watch it, do you really want to watch it from an iPhone or iPad (as great as those screens may be)?

Google TV
Hulu Plus will launch with Samsung as its HDTV partner. Interestingly enough, Sony (which is partners with Google on its Google TV initiative) will also get Hulu Plus embedded into its TVs and Blu-ray players. Even the PS3 will get Hulu Plus (late July) beating Microsoft's Xbox 360 to the punch. The difference here is that Google TV will be free, whereas Hulu Plus is not. It's too early to tell which company will offer the better service, but to our wallets, Google TV + the non-subscription version of Hulu sounds a lot better than Hulu Plus.

Netflix
A lot of the back catalogs that are available on Hulu Plus are also available via Netflix and the latter only charges $8.99/mo. for unlimited streaming (that also includes the rental of 1 DVD out at a time per month). There's no point in having both Netflix and Hulu Plus and cable TV.


That said, Hulu Plus does have some notable features. The fact that most of its content will be HD (720p) is a huge plus. The flexibility of watching content on your TV, computer, or mobile is also very intriguing. Enough to pay $10/mo. — probably not.