Hulu Considering Reducing Ads for Subscribers: New York Post
Will Hulu cut down on the amount of online video ads its paid Hulu Plus subscribers see? That's the rumor floated in a New York Post article yesterday. Customers now pay $7.99 per month for Hulu Plus, and see a heavy ad load that rivals that of broadcast television.
The Post quotes "an executive close to the company" saying that Hulu and its partners are “always looking at a variety of ways to create the best possible experience for our viewers and advertisers including reducing the ad load.”
That's a pretty flimsy quote to build a story on, but it's gotten the online video industry talking. It's no secret that Hulu is trailing its main competitor, Netflix, by a wide margin, and one reason could be that Netflix customers don't see ads.
The idea that paid subscribers would have to view ads is so surprising that Hulu has a page dedicated to explaining why that is. "Premium content — especially from the current TV season — is not only expensive to make and license, but we also want to compensate our content partners fairly for the valuable entertainment they provide," the page says, adding that the ads -- which it calls "a modest ad load" -- help keep Hulu subscriptions under $8 per month.
Hulu seems to be figuring out that if it has fewer ads, it might have a whole lot more of those eight buck subscriptions.
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