Hulu Plus, the online video subscription service owned by major broadcast networks ABC, Fox and NBC, reached a new milestone at the end of the year with 1.5 million paying subscribers a little more than a year after its formal launch.
Its CEO, Jason Kilar, also brought in the new year with a comment Hulu’s broadcast TV owners might not want to hear: that he believes online viewing will ultimately surpass TV as the main way people watch their shows.
“We have conviction that digital ultimately becomes the primary way that consumers across the globe choose to access content,” he said in a blog post Thursday.
Hulu Plus lets subscribers stream a range of current shows that have already run on TV such as Community,Grimm and The Colbert Report plus a large catalog of full seasons of back episodes of many other shows for $8 a month. It has begun spending more money on original programming as well, including a documentary series from filmmaker Morgan Spurlock that debuted in August called A Day in the Life.
Kilar said in the blog post that Hulu Plus plans to spend about a half-billion dollars on content in 2012.
The episodes on Hulu Plus and its free counterpart, Hulu.com, come with advertising, but less than on regular TV. Hulu Plus can be viewed on smartphones, tablets, computers and game consoles as well as Internet-connected TVs. Hulu.com can be viewed only using a computer.
To read the full story: USA Today
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