Hulu continued its push past your PC on Tuesday with two new deals that will bring the online video service right to your living room. TiVo and Roku both announced plans to offer access to Hulu's fee-based Plus service from their respective set-top boxes.
Hulu Plus is Hulu's fee-based service, which debuted earlier this year, but is still available on an invitation-only basis. For $9.99 a month, Hulu Plus delivers a more comprehensive on-demand library of television shows than Hulu's free service, offering both new episodes as well as complete past seasons of popular shows. The Hulu Plus library includes, for example, 7 seasons worth (125 episodes) of Grey's Anatomy, as well as 3 seasons (41 episodes) of The Greatest American Hero.
Hulu Plus already is available on portable devices like the iPad and the iPhone, as well as through some Internet-connected TVs and Blu-ray players from Samsung. The service also is available on Sony's PlayStation 3 console, and Hulu says it is coming to the Microsoft Xbox 360 in early 2011.
Before it makes its way to the Xbox, however, Hulu Plus will land on TiVo's Premiere DVRs, as well as all of Roku's Internet-connected set-top boxes. TiVo says it will offer a Hulu Plus channel to all TiVo Premier customers "in the coming months," but does not specify a date. Roku, meanwhile, says its Hulu Plus channel will be available this fall. Both TiVo and Roku will require that you have a subscription to the $9.99-per-month Hulu Plus service in order to access the channel. TiVo's Premiere DVR also requires a subscription to the TiVo service, so customers will have to pay that, too. (TiVo charges $12.95 per month or $399 for lifetime TiVo service.) Roku's boxes don't come with a monthly service fee, but most of its content, which includes streaming video from Netflix and Amazon, is fee based.
TiVo, known as the pioneer of the DVR market, is a well-known name, but its sales have fallen off in recent years as more people have opted to rent DVRs from their cable company instead of purchasing one outright. And while Roku's products are inexpensive and generally well-regarded, they're not exactly a household name. So Hulu isn't likely to see its Plus service explode in popularity thanks to these new deals.
Hulu also faces what may be an uphill battle in convincing TiVo and Roku users that its Plus service is worth $9.99 a month. Both TiVo and Roku already offer Netflix streaming, and while that service also requires a subscription, it's ad-free. Hulu Plus is not; in addition to paying a subscription fee, users also have to view ads. Hulu Plus does features a more comprehensive library of TV shows that Netflix, however, as the Netflix selection is generally limited to older shows that already are available on DVD.
Still, partnering with respected names like TiVo and Roku makes sense for Hulu as the company continues its steady -- if slow -- march toward becoming a common presence in your living room. As an admirer of Hulu's service, I can't help but think that's good news.
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