Have you upgraded to Hulu Plus? You may be a little disappointed in the amount of content you're getting for that $10 a month. In fact, One Touch Intelligence recently analyzed the available content on the online video catch-up service and found that only about 12 percent of the content Hulu Plus users paid for wasn't already available for free on the standard Hulu.
Aside from the premium content available on Hulu Plus, users have few additional reasons to be thrilled with the service. The Plus service carries the same ad load as does the free service, it's not available for any mobile platform outside of Apple's iPad and iPhone, and much of the premium content is available elsewhere eventually.
With Apple's iTunes TV initiative rumored to be rolling out Sept. 1, or shortly thereafter, Hulu has to be looking over its shoulder a bit. comScore recently revised the way it ranks online video properties, dropping Hulu from one billion views a month and second place behind YouTube to the No. 10 spot.
The company said it had ad revenue of $100 million in the first half of the year, but much of that flows through its pockets into its owners, and as the Comcast deal to buy NBC Universal slowly grinds forward it becomes pretty clear that Hulu's in a precarious spot, not withstanding the $2 billion IPO rumored to be coming to Wall Street.
For more:
- see this article
Related articles:
Hollywood producer lambasts Hulu for rumored $2 billion IPO bid
Rumor mill: Hulu weighing $2B IPO
Report: Hulu nabs 783 million video ad views in July