When we last checked in with Hulu, there were rumors that panicky TV execs wanted to tether the quasi-miracle service to existing cable packages. Those of us who didn’t want to shell out for Lifetime and A&E would have been SOL if we also wanted to watch Community without turning to back alley download services. Fortunately, the news from Hulu HQ is positive, with the service hauling down almost $700 million in revenue and grabbing themselves 3 million subscribers for Hulu Plus. Maybe there’s a future in this whole “internet” thing after all.Part of what led to Hulu’s jump in revenue was its traveling from computers to use on Apple TV, Microsoft tablets, Android phones and the Wii. So thanks nerds, because of you, we can keep on reaping the benefits of free internet TV while playing a game in another tab while an ad plays also watching ads.
Someone has to be watching those ads though, because Hulu served 1,000 advertisers. That doesn’t sound like much compared to the big boys in TV land, but it’s a start, and it’s also more than they did last year.
And how did this come to benefit you, the freeloader consumer? Hulu says they added 40% more content this year, giving them a total of 60,000 TV episodes and 50,000 hours of video between Hulu and Hulu Plus. We’re not in the technology prediction business (ours is more of the technology fearing and doubting business) but we’ll go out on a limb and say that this will keep the Big 3 Networks (and NBC) from trying to kill or drastically change the service for the time being.