Parts of this article (those related to international availability) need to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (September 2014)
apx.6 million Hulu Plus subscribers (2014)[3] Unknown number of free content viewers.
Launched
October 29, 2007 (Hulu Syndication Network)[4] March 12, 2008 (Hulu.com destination site)[4]
Current status
Active
Hulu is an American online company and ad-supported online video service that offers a selection of TV shows, clips, movies, and more on the free Hulu.com service and the Hulu Plus subscription service. Hulu Plus subscribers can access episodes in HD (when available) from ABC, Fox, NBC, and the CW the day after they air, using Internet-connected TVs, smartphones, game consoles, set-top boxes, and other Internet-connected devices for $7.99 per month. Hulu videos are currently offered only to users in the United States and its overseas territories. Other regions are blocked by IP address location. Hulu provides video in Flash Video format, including many films and shows that are available in 288p, 360p, 480p, and in some cases, 720p or 1080p HD (high-definition video). Hulu also provides web syndication services for other websites including AOL, Facebook, MSN, Myspace, Yahoo!, and Comcast's XfinityTV.
The name Hulu comes from two Mandarin Chinese words, húlú (葫芦/葫蘆), "calabash; bottle gourd", and hùlù (互录/互錄), "interactive recording". The company blog explains:
In Mandarin, Hulu has two interesting meanings, each highly relevant to our mission. The primary meaning interested us because it is used in an ancient Chinese proverb that describes the Hulu as the holder of precious things. It literally translates to "gourd," and in ancient times, the Hulu was hollowed out and used to hold precious things. The secondary meaning is "interactive recording." We saw both definitions as appropriate bookends and highly relevant to the mission of Hulu.[10]
History
The Hulu venture was announced in March 2007 with AOL, MSN, Facebook, Comcast, Myspace and Yahoo! planned as "initial distribution partners". Jason Kilar was named the CEO in June 2007.[11][12] The name Hulu was chosen in late August 2007, when the website went live, with an announcement only and no content. It invited users to leave their email addresses for the upcoming beta test.[13] In October, Hulu began the private beta testing by invitation, and later allowed users to invite friends.[14] Hulu launched for public access in the United States on March 12, 2008.[4] The first product to launch was the HULU Syndication network, which was designed and developed by the NBCUniversal team from New York, on October 29, 2007, followed by the Hulu.com destinations site.
Hulu began an advertising campaign during NBC's broadcast of Super Bowl XLIII with an initial ad starring Alec Baldwin titled "Alec in Huluwood".[15] The ad intended to humorously reveal "the shocking secret behind Hulu", portraying the site as being an "evil plot to destroy the world" by suggesting that Baldwin is really an alien in disguise.[16] Advertisements have since aired featuring Eliza Dushku, Seth MacFarlane, Denis Leary, and Will Arnett.
Early in 2010, Hulu chief executive Jason Kilar said the service has made a profit in two quarters and that the company could top $100 million in revenue by summer 2010, more than its income for all of 2009. ComScore says monthly video streams reached 903 million in January 2010, over three times the figure for a year earlier,[17] and second only to YouTube.[18]
Hulu has been identified as a possible candidate for an IPO by 2013.[19][needs update] On August 16, 2010, a report revealed that Hulu is planning an Initial Public Offering (IPO) which could value the company at more than $2 billion.[20][21]
On June 21, 2011, The Wall Street Journal reported that an "unsolicited offer" caused Hulu to begin "weighing whether to sell itself."[22] On October 13, 2011 however, Hulu and its owners announced that they will not sell the company, as none of the bidders offered an amount that was satisfactory to its owners.[23]
It was reported that in 2011 Hulu made $420 million. The figure was $80 million short of the predicted revenue.[24]
The vacant CEO post was officially filled by former Fox Networks President Mike Hopkins on October 17, 2013.[25]
Content partners
Following the start of its service, Hulu signed deals with several new content providers making additional material available to consumers.
On April 30, 2009, The Walt Disney Company announced that it would join the venture, purchasing a 27% stake in Hulu.[7]
Starting August 15, 2011, viewers of content from Fox and related networks are required to authenticate paid cable or satellite service wherever Fox streams episodes, including on Hulu, to be able to watch them the morning after the first airing. Non-subscribers will see those episodes delayed a week before they are viewable.[26]
On October 28, 2011, Hulu announced that they had inked a five-year deal with The CW, giving the streaming site access to next-day content from five of the six major networks.[27]
On September 18, 2013, Hulu announced a multi-year deal with the BBC that will deliver 2,000 episodes from 144 different titles in the first 12 months.[29]
Hulu Plus
At an industry conference held on October 21, 2009, News Corporation Deputy Chairman Chase Carey stated that Hulu "needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business" and that it would likely start charging for at least some content by 2010.[30] Carey's comment jibes with other News Corp. heads, including Rupert Murdoch who has expressed a desire to charge for content with a number of online units.[31]
Hulu Plus, a monthly subscription service, was launched in beta (preview) on June 29, 2010[32] and officially launched on November 17, 2010.[33] Like the free version of Hulu, the video available on Hulu Plus also contains commercials. However, it offers subscribers an expanded content library in the form of full seasons and more episodes of shows already available through Hulu. Hulu Plus supports a wider array of platforms than the free portions Hulu. A little more than a year after the launch of Hulu Plus, the number of paying subscribers reached 1.5 million.[34]
Platforms
The company claims that Hulu Plus now has millions of viewers on more than 400 million internet-connected devices in the US, including TVs, smartphones, gaming consoles, and set-top boxes.[35]
Televisions (networked-enabled Smart Tvs) / Blu-ray Players:
Samsung Tvs/Blu-rays
Vizio Tvs/Blu-rays
Sony Tvs/Blu-rays
LG Tvs/Blu-rays
Panasonic Tvs/Blu-rays
Sharp TVS
Philips Tvs
Toshiba Blu-rays
Dynex Blu-rays
Denon Blu-rays
Marantz Blu-rays
Computer: The hulu.com website is built to host content directly in a web browser.
To watch Hulu videos, you will need:
Adobe Flash Player 10.1.53.64 or above
Internet Explorer 8.0 or above, Firefox 18.0 or above, Safari 5.0 or above, or Chrome
Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or above, Macintosh OS X 10.4 or above, or Linux
JavaScript and Cookies enabled
Viewership
Viewership numbers for the site are tracked by measurement firms such as ComScore, Nielsen ratings, and Quantcast. In partnership with comScore, Hulu is the first digital company to receive multi-platform measurement at an individual level that includes co-viewing for living room devices. When factoring this in, Hulu’s reach among A18-49 increases 50%.
However, the reliability of these metrics has been drawn into question, partly due to widely divergent estimates. For example, between May and June 2010, ComScore updated its scoring methodology, and its estimates for Hulu dropped from 43.5 million unique viewers to 24 million in a single month.[36] In a comScore digital trends report in 2010, comScore’s Digital Year in Review report found that Hulu was watched twice as much as viewers who watched on the websites of the five major TV networks combined.[37]
In November 2009, Hulu also began to establish partnerships with record labels to host music videos and concert performances on the site, including EMI in November 2009,[40] and Warner Music Group in December 2009.[41]
In early March 2010, Viacom announced that it was pulling two of the website's most popular shows,[42]The Colbert Report and The Daily Show, off Hulu.[42] The programs had been airing on Hulu since late 2008.[43] A spokesman for Viacom noted that "in the current economic model, there is not that much in it for us to continue at this time. If they can get to the point where the monetization model is better, then we may go back."[43] In February 2011, both shows were made available for streaming on Hulu again.
As of January 17, 2011, Hulu has streamed its own in-house web series The Morning After, a light-hearted pop-culture news show. It is produced by Hulu in conjunction with Jace Hall's HDFilms and stars Brian Kimmet and Ginger Gonzaga. Producing the show is a first for the company, which in the past has been primarily a content distributor.[44]
On January 16, 2012, Hulu announced that it would be airing its first original script based program, titled Battleground, scheduled to air in February 2012. The program will air on Hulu's free web service rather than on the subscription-based Hulu Plus. Battleground is described as a documentary-style political drama.[45]
Later that same month, Hulu announced it would air The Fashion Fund, a six-part reality series, and the winner of the show will receive $300,000 to start their career.[46]
To continue with its original programming movement, Hulu announced that there will be a total of seven original programs that are planned to air on its service: Battleground, Day in the Life, and Up to Speed, and a were previously mentioned; and on April 19, Hulu added four more shows to its list: Don't Quit Your Daydream, Flow, The Awesomes, and We Got Next. Some of these programs began airing in 2012, while others will premiere over the next few years.[47]
On May 21, 2012, Hulu announced it would be bringing Kevin Smith to its line-up of original programming. Smith hosts a movie discussion show titled Spoilers, which began airing in the summer of 2012.[48]
Through October 2014, access to Hulu.com and Hulu Plus is not available internationally outside of the United States.[49]
In 2013, Nippon Television Network Corporation (Nippon TV) acquired Hulu’s Japan business. The transaction, which is subject to certain regulatory conditions, marked Nippon TV’s entry into the SVOD (Subscription Video On Demand) business. Through the acquisition, the Hulu service continues to offer Japanese consumers premium content, including Hollywood and Japanese films and dramas and popular television programming. Additionally, Nippon TV’s popular shows and original exclusive content launched on the Hulu service in Japan, expanding its content offering, and continuing to delight subscribers in Japan.[50] Japanese users have access to a library of popular television shows such as the CSI franchise, Grey's Anatomy, Prison Break, and Ugly Betty, and as well as movies such as Armageddon, Men in Black, and Pirates of the Caribbean.[51]
Hulu was planning on launching in the UK and Ireland in September 2009, but as of April 2010 these had been abandoned for the foreseeable future after failure to sign any content deals.[52] In July 2010, the Financial Times revealed that Hulu had been working on plans for an international launch of Hulu Plus for several months, and had identified the UK and Japan as markets where its free website and subscription model could feasibly work.[53] Hulu chief executive Jason Kilar expressed his belief that the US model could be replicated elsewhere, saying "We won't be satisfied until this is a global service."[54] Hulu's first expansion into an international market took place with the launching of service in Japan on September 1, 2011.[55]
South Park
On July 12, 2014, it was announced that Hulu had signed a three-year deal purchasing exclusive online streaming rights to the South Park library. Through the deal, the South Park Studios website became powered by the Hulu video and advertising experience.[56] Along with this, the domain name changed from "southparkstudios.com" to "southpark.cc.com".[57][58] Previously, the show had been removed from Netflix, along with other titles.[59] The new site launch caused a few technical issues, but everything was fixed and fans are able to watch full, uncensored [60] episodes and clips again on southpark.cc.com and Hulu. For viewers outside the US, episodes and clips still stream through the “classic” South Park player and nothing changed aside from the new site design. A handful of countries have their own localized versions of South Park sites – fans in these countries can continue to watch episodes and interact with other fans exactly as before.[61]
It was announced that beginning in September 2014, following the premiere of the 18th season, only 30 select episodes will be featured for free viewing at a time on the website, with new episodes being available for an entire month starting the day following their original airings. The entire series is available for viewing on Hulu Plus.
^Although NBCUniversal is the largest shareholder (32%) of Hulu, by the Federal Communications Commission, NBCUniversal and Comcast are required not to exercise any right to influence the conduct or operation of Hulu. "Neither Comcast nor C-NBCU shall exercise any right to influence the conduct or operation of Hulu, including those arising from agreements, arrangements or operation of its equity interests (e.g., board seats, voting for directors or other shareholder matters, management and veto rights, etc.) and C-NBCU shall as and from the date of this Order hold its interest in Hulu solely as an economic interest." (MO&O, 1/20/11, FCC Grants Approval of Comcast-NBCU Transaction, Comcast Corporation and NBC Universal, Federal Communications Commission)
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$695.43 million (2012)[2]
