How much is Hulu right now? Or, for that matter, how much is Netflix, Amazon Prime and practically every one of the other streaming services that are competing for audience’s eyeballs? These are all valid questions, especially now that Hulu has decided to drastically alter the pricing for two of its biggest account options.
How much is Hulu now?
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the company announced on Wednesday that its live TV bundle and basic streaming packages were both about to undergo some major financial revisions. The former, which grants subscribers access to 60 live TV channels in addition to the streamer’s original and licensed TV and film content, was bumped $5 up from $40 to $45 per month. The former, which lets users watch original and licensed content with ad support for $8 per month, is now only going to cost $6 a month.
If you’re already a Hulu subscriber, then these changes will either make you happy, angry or indifferent. Most likely they will affect current subscribers indifferently, as the majority of the streamer’s users utilize the ad-less $12 per month option that doesn’t include live TV. What Wednesday’s announcement will definitely do, however, is send a big signal to Netflix, which announced a significant price hike last week.
To say that Hulu and Netflix are fierce competitors would be an understatement. Last week, they released competing documentaries about the disastrous Fyre Festival. The story behind these concurrent documentary films is as riveting as Fyre itself, but so too is the story of the two outlets’ competitiveness with one another. Netflix remains the top streamer thanks to name recognition and sheer numbers, but Hulu has been swiftly catching up.
How much is Hulu now?
As THR is quick to point out, however, dueling documentaries and pricing changes won’t spell the end of Netflix and Hulu’s competition anytime soon. On the contrary, the looming Disney-Fox merger will mean that Hulu will become majority owned by the same corporate umbrella that oversees the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars. Seeing as how Disney is hard at work on launching its own streaming service to compete with Netflix, things are about to get even nastier.
