Hulu Ends Free Streaming Service, Moves Free Stuff To Yahoo View (hollywoodreporter.com) 111
Hulu has inked a deal with Yahoo to provide free, ad-supported episodes of a range of TV shows. But Hulu also said Monday it will end free streaming service on its own platform as it is moving that to an all-subscription model. As part of its expanded distribution deal with Yahoo, which is launching Yahoo View, a new ad-supported TV streaming site with five most recent episodes of shows from ABC, NBC, and Fox among other networks. From an article on The Hollywood Reporter:Most of Hulu's free content has been fairly limited, restricted to what's known as the "rolling five," or the five most recent episodes of a current show -- content that typically becomes available eight days after it airs and is usually also available for free on broadcast networks' websites. For example, recent episodes of shows like America's Got Talent, South Park and Brooklyn Nine-Nine are currently available for free, while Hulu's slate of originals and high-profile exclusives remain behind the paywall. [...] Yahoo is launching the TV site a half-year after shuttering Yahoo Screen, the video service that offered up ad-supported episodes of original TV shows like Community, live streaming concerts and other clips. With View, however, Yahoo is focusing specifically on providing a destination for television to its audience, many of whom are still driven to Yahoo products via its highly trafficked homepage.
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Nice Haiku.
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Re:The Yahoo name makes me avoid a service entirel (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'm sure Mark Cuban is spending his 5.7Billion wisely.
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My question is - did anyone actually know that Yahoo previously offered ad supported network shows? I literally have never heard any reference to it prior to this story.
Yeah, I've known about it for two or three minutes now.
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Other Space was good. It's the only thing I ever watched on Yahoo.
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Fans of Community were well aware--after NBC cancelled it a second (third?) time after the fifth season, Yahoo! picked up for the sixth and final season. (A recurring joke/plea was #SixSeasonsAndAMovie) That and Other Space were probably the only somewhat-known content it had.
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Anime, older shows? Imthebossneedtheinfo (Score:2)
I've been using it to mostly stream anime - Does that go to Yahoo too or fall under Hulu's subscription model?
Are they going to continue to show ads on their PAID SUBSCRIPTION service? Even the more expensive NO-ADS subscription service that still sells ads?
Is Yahoo's service still going to use Hulu's software to stream or has Yahoo come up with a whole new system?
And how many people can use the Hulu subscription simultaneously... :)
Re:Anime, older shows? Imthebossneedtheinfo (Score:4, Informative)
Are they going to continue to show ads on their PAID SUBSCRIPTION service? Even the more expensive NO-ADS subscription service that still sells ads?
Yes, they will continue to have ads on their paid subscription service. It's all spelt out when you sign up.
Also, yes, they'll also have some commercials in programs that are required to have commercials under their no commercials service. This is a limitation from the content providers, not with Hulu deciding they want more ads to run. The shows that this affects are listed during signup for the no-commercial plan.
From their help: "In response to feedback from our viewers, we started offering a commercial free experience on Hulu. For a small number of shows, however, we have not obtained the rights to stream commercial free and they are not included in our No Commercials plan. You can still easily access these shows with a short commercial before and after each episode with no interruptions during the episode. Specific shows that still have commercials accessible through the No Commercials plan will be noted throughout the signup, switching and playback experience. While the list of shows may change, they are currently: Greyâ(TM)s Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, Marvelâ(TM)s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, Grimm, New Girl, and How To Get Away With Murder."
Bolded by me. The wording is not unclear and they don't pretend everything will have no commercials. What you're buying for $8 is Hulu Plus, the library they have with the ability to stream with commercials. Adding $4 to the plan to remove commercials gives you access to the entirety of the "No commercials" package, which does not included a whopping 7 shows.
What does watching those 7 shows give you in practice? Under Hulu+ you'll have a couple commercials prior to each show, with some in the middle of shows. Under Hulu+ and No Commercial plan you'll have one Commercial before the shows, none during and one after. Then when starting the next episode you'll have another before that one. If you click "Next episode" it counts as stopping watching that, so you'll skip the after commercial and just need to watch the before commercial.
TL;DR: I dropped cable and picked up Hulu+ No commercials and Netflix and haven't been happier with my TV Viewing in a long time. The only thing missing is sports, but there are subscriptions available for NFL now too if you're willing to not watch live.
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Do you have any idea why the rights holders for those few shows insist on commercials?
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Re: Anime, older shows? Imthebossneedtheinfo (Score:1)
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Sorry but you're either naive or sound like a shill for Hulu. You realize that Hulu is Comcast, Time Warner, Disney, Fox, and NBC all rolled up into one? Of course they want to keep commercials in. They have no incentive to keep them out because there's folks willing to pay for a service that includes commercials...just like cable. Bottom line...how is Hulu any different than cable?
I might, or I might just be happy with the product and willing to pay for it. If you go back far enough in my comment history I'm sure you'll think I'm a shill for TiVo as well because it allows me to timeshift and 30 second skip through commercials.
Bottom line...hulu is different from cable in many ways.
1: You can watch what you want when you want instead of on the networks schedule.
2: It's cheaper by a factor of 10 ($12 instead of $120).
3: Has *WAY* fewer commercials with the No-Commercials pla
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and current Tivos (Roamio and above) have a feature where you skip the entire commercial break _for a significant number of shows_ (but definitely not all) just by hitting one key when the commercial break starts.
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Bizarre that Grimm is included, since the first 4 seasons are commercial free on Amazon Prime Video. (..and presumably the 5th season will be added sometime around the beginning of the new TV season, which has happened for the previous seasons.)
In other words, it's weird that the different streaming services have such a different experience with the same show.
Re: Anime, older shows? Imthebossneedtheinfo (Score:1)
Verizon is trying to compete w/ Comcast? (Score:1)
One can hope this will create competition between Comcast and Verizon that will make things more tolerable for the end user, but my hunch is otherwise.
Broadcast television (recorded personally) is still how I find it easiest to watch shows.
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Broadcaster here. Please continue to support local TV and big broadcast networks until we figure out how to monetize streaming well enough to survive Comcast's and Dish's downward negotiating pressure on rebroadcast prices. Maybe we can license live stream rebroadcasting to Netflix and Hulu.
(That's commentary; I don't represent a broadcasting corporation.)
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I'm a recent convert, and pay the extra $4 for commercial free, and am thinking along the same lines. I will miss my DVR - we'd save up entire seasons of shows and binge watch when we had the time. But if you can watch any show any time, you don't really need a DVR... and especially if there are no commercials (the biggest benefit to DVR, IMO, is skipping commercials). The only problem is every show has this or that restrictions... only the most recent 5 being the most common, with the show not being ava
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I just signed up for Hulu+ commercial free. $12 compared to the nearly $140/month I was paying for DirecTV (don't get me wrong, I liked DirecTV's service a lot, but that's a lot of money for watching TV). I've had it less than a week, but we've been enjoying commercial free since we haven't watched any of the exceptions, but even the exceptions are supposed to only show commercials on the front/back end and not interrupt the program in the middle... the better question is who wouldn't pay the extra $4 to
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And it's a 30 second commercial in the front and back.
They intentionally made it as commercial free as possible. Less commercial than on an HBO show.
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Who Lu? (Score:4, Interesting)
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The MAFIAA has already done some strong-arming of Netflix to get their way and push their own products. STARZ keeps going back and forth about having content on Netflix, Showtime has slowly removed
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I actually really liked Hulu, having used it from its first year until April of this year. It had a lot of "day after" showings of series I liked, and once they finally got a No Commercials plan I started giving them actual money. Even though it cost more than Netflix and the original content was subpar, I was quite happy.
But, this past April, they forced a new "Watchlist" format on all users. The move was basically an amalgam of every complaint /. has whenever UI is fucked with: control is removed, interac
Is Hulu still a thing? (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to use it when it first started. It was easier and of course, I felt that I was "doing the right thing" as opposed to torrenting for TV shows. Then they went to the paid model. Wait a second, I have to pay... and watch commercials. When was that 2-3 years ago? Stopped watching Hulu. I used to 'make fun' of people at work who were paying for this. They want you to pay and watch commercials?! Hell, I can put an antenna on my TV and watch for "free." So yea, what does their user base (paying that is) really look like these days?
I was thinking of this in terms of news the other day. I am an admitted news junkie. And I've noticed that I don't even bother with the NYT or the WPost any more. I just jump over those bookmarks. Instead I use free sites where I can use adblocks. Not that I have an aversion to ads, just don't need all that crap running on my browser. I even paid for Sling for a couple of months so I could get CNN. But dropped it, after realizing I was paying 20 bucks a month for CNN, just wasn't worth it. Instead, I watch France24, DW and Sky News. Why, cause they don't charge me. So I don't watch the BIG news casters.
My real point? Not sure exactly.... But I drop the big casters trying to nickle and dime me, and get the free options. When it comes to TV shows, the point of Hulu (I would think) for the consumer, was to offer TV in a legal and easier to use fashion than torrenting. I'm back to the point where it's easier to pay for a proxy and torrent. What have the streamers learned, from what I can gather, not much.
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I've only just converted, but I'm glad to see other people like you having success in ditching the > $100 (mine was nearly $140 from DirecTV for service on 3 TVs, and that didn't even include any premium channels). I decided TV is just not worth it. I liked skipping commercials with the DVR, but with Hulu's commercial free option, that hasn't been a problem. There are certainly drawbacks and caveats, and there are holes in the programming that I need to make up for in other ways (like you with the spo
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Talk about propaganda. At least CNN reporters don't sit in a hotel room and call in their reports because they're too scared to go out in a war zone [slashdot.org].
In fact, Robertson noted he saw the Fox reporter more often at breakfast than he did anywhere in the combat area.
S
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Wow, you sure made it clear to everyone what tribe you belong too! But did you stop to think, "do I really need to re-assert my tribal affiliation when I have nothing else to say?" Because the answer is no, no you don't.
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Yeah, I used to watch Hulu all the time with their free tier as well, but stopped watching regularly a year or two ago after the experience turned sour.
For instance, one serialized show I watched suddenly stopped receiving new episodes about 3/4 of the way through the season, even though it was (and is) still on the air. New episodes started again with the next season, but those older episodes were never posted for free viewing, and then they did the exact same thing the next season as well. For other shows
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Yeah, pay-to-view-ads was pants-on-head stupid, so I continued with the free, ad-supported plan. Last year they introduced a more expensive No Commercials plan and I was quite happy to give them my money. Then this year they completely fucked up their UI and I dropped them entirely.
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Paid Hulu had ads since the beginning. The updated ad-free plan is actually new.
And at the end... (Score:1)
Nothing of value was lost.
It still does no good for those outside the US (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, bittorrent is still the best service going.
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Rent collectors cry to the government with GIMME GIMME GIMME indefinite copyright!
Can't compete with free!
Tell it to Netflix....
Yes they can compete with free, with convenience and a fair price. The numbers don't lie.
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So next time I feel like I need some free electricity to charge my electric car with - what's your address? And I
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Sorry, they aren't the only ones to set the rules. If I purchased the content, say through Netflix, and they refuse to deliver because of my location, I will take the right to access it as I please. If I bought a VHS, I won't let them charge me again for the DVD when I can download and record my own. I am entitled to the things I purchased.
As for the rest of your troll charade, it doesn't apply, and I'm not playing.
Television? (Score:2)
I don't want more than one (Score:1)
Suckers! (Score:2, Interesting)
They fell for the 'streaming TV' meme, LOL!
OTA broadcasts + TiVo + 30_second_skip_enabled = Free TV, no ads.
Oh, and by the way: You're paying for TV three times now: Pay for internet, pay for the streaming service, and be subjected to ads. Suckers!
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Some of us have highspeed internet, but no over the air channels within SEVERAL hundred miles.
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Have you heard about this thing called Hulu, where you can watch non-OTA shows? It is good it was even on /. earlier today.
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I'm not paying to watch TV. Especially when you PAY and still have to watch ADS. That's why there's an antenna on my roof. You're welcome to PAY to watch ADS all you want, buddy, if that's what gets you off.
Yahoo?? (Score:1)
"many of whom are still driven to Yahoo products via its highly trafficked homepage." Crap, did I wake up in an alternate timeline again?
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This.
I quit using it several weeks ago when the new watchlist replaced my queue. Hulu only had 2 shows I still watched sem-regularly anyway, and I wasn't going to bother with the watchlist. I thought, perhaps with the hatred of the feature and loss of viewers, they'd wise up -- but no. Apparently my eyeballs aren't worth the money they make from targeted advertising towards me vs the bandwidth cost to serve me. That's fine.
Most of what I watch, I have to visit various websites directly anyway -- like sy
Rolling 5 is a good deal... (Score:2)
I actually loved the original Hulu.
The idea that I could watch the latest five episodes of a TV show with associated commercials baked in (and unskipable) was quite nice. I certainly stopped pirating those shows.
The problem with Hulu was that they slowly made more of their stuff behind paywalls. This move to a different website is a good solution. Keep the free stuff on Yahoo and paywalled stuff on Hulu.
I tried their subscription model... (Score:1)
Did their paid service stop sucking at some point? (Score:1)
When I last tried to use that service, most of the content was not available on the paid variant. What was on it had a bigger back catalog, but was too infested with commercials to be viable. I understand you can pay 50% more to reduce, but not eliminate, the commercials now. But did they ever get all the content moved over to the pay service? Otherwise dropping the free service seems brain dead, even for Hulu.
Your connection is not secure (Score:1)
Great move (Score:1)
ulu Ends Free Streaming Service, Moves Free Stuff (Score:1)