“We all groaned at the news about Hulu moving to a paid model next year,” says Chris Jacob in Gizmodo, but if the price is right—say, a Netflix-like $10 to $20 a month—it may be worth the cost. If Hulu owners NBC, ABC, and Fox make new episodes available right away, add more content, and give us set-top playback, “I might be willing to part with a few bucks a month and ditch my cable company entirely.”
Hulu “isn’t putting up a pay wall around its Web TV site,” no matter what the rumors say, says Peter Kafka in All Things Digital. What it is looking at is a two-tiered system, where the stuff already on the site now will stay free, but new “premium” shows will be added for a cost—or maybe pay-per-view movies and TV. Hulu is doing much better than expected, even “coming close to break-even” selling ads alone, so the extra revenue stream isn’t urgent.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Why ghost guns are so easy to make — and so dangerousThe Explainer Untraceable, DIY firearms are a growing public health and safety hazard
-
The Week contest: Swift stimulusPuzzles and Quizzes
-
'It's hard to resist a sweet deal on a good car'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
