Last year Hulu launched Hulu Plus the pay service from Hulu. In a blog post from the CEO of Hulu, Jason Kilar, said in part “Hulu Plus is not a replacement for Hulu.com. Hulu Plus is a new, revolutionary ad-supported subscription product that is incremental and complementary to the existing Hulu service.” So what does that mean? What is Hulu Plus and is it worth the $7.99 a month subscription fee?
First Hulu Plus does offer a number of features that the free version does not offer. Among them is a full run of many of the most popular shows. Take Modern Family for example. At our house we recently discovered this show and were able to watch all of the past episodes from the beginning. In addition Hulu Plus boasts “hundreds of movies.” For all of the things that Hulu Plus does offer there are many drawbacks that would make one think twice about paying for the service.
One of the main draw backs is the limited devices that Hulu Plus is currently available on. The apps for Hulu Plus are available on many Apple and Sony products other than that you may find it difficult to find a product that will support the service. Being able to have Hulu Plus was one of the main criteria that I had when a recently purchased a Blu Ray player and it was very difficult to find one that supported the Hulu Plus internet app. If you want to have Hulu Plus on your TV sticking with Sony would be your best bet for now. If you checkout the Hulu site for what devices are compatible you will see a number of brands listed but be careful as many bare the coming soon label meaning at this time that brand is not supported. Another main issue with Hulu Plus is that you can not get any of the shows from CBS. This may not seem like that big of a deal but when you consider that last week seven of the ten top rated Nielsen show were on CBS it may change your thinking.
The other issue with Hulu Plus is that while it is a paid service you are still forced to watch commercials. I know what many of you are going to say, you pay for cable and have to watch commercials. Yes, unless you are adept at using your DVR then while there are commercials you are not really forced to watch them the way that Hulu Plus forces you to watch them. Over all is Hulu Plus worth the money? Let me go back to what Mr. Kilar said in his blog post “Hulu Plus is not a replacement for Hulu.com.” Therein lies the problem; it should be, especially since many people will want to use the service on their televisions’. Once we have to pay for a service it should change the nature of the service enough to be worth the cost. The fact is that many of the full runs of shows that Hulu Plus offers are also available on Netflix. In addition Netflix is available on many more devices that we already own. So is Hulu Plus worth the money? As it is today I would say no. The fact that they have not been able to secure rights to CBS shows, limited number of devices for viewing on your television, and the fact that they make you watch commercials unlike their biggest competitor Netflix all add up to one conclusion. Hulu Plus is not worth the money, not even at just $7.99 a month.
