HULU to add live streaming channels in 2017

[FORD]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Video website Hulu on Tuesday announced deals to add programming from Twenty-first Century Fox and Walt Disney Co to a streaming TV service that it plans to offer in early 2017.

Disney and Fox, as well as Comcast Corp and Time Warner Inc, own stakes in Hulu.

Hulu's live and on-demand streaming video service will include Fox’s entertainment, news, sports and non-fiction content, along with video from Disney's channels including ABC and ESPN, it said in a statement.

Time Warner said in August that it would pay $583 million to buy a 10 percent stake in Hulu and that its Turner networks, including TBS, Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies, would be available on the new service.

"With these two new deals in place, and additional partners to come, Hulu will soon give TV fans of all ages live and on-demand access to their favorite programs in a whole new, more flexible, highly personalized way," Hulu Chief Executive Officer Mike Hopkins said in the company's statement.

Hulu's customers currently watch shows on demand for $8 per month with commercials or $12 without them. The company has beefed up its customer service staff and has been hiring executives from outside and within to slow subscriber defections ahead of the introduction of its live TV service.

[FORD]

This could be a contender for sports fans. You have ABC & ESPN, FOX Sports, and the Turner channels for March Madness. It's just too bad that Hulu's other major partner, Scumcast, hasn't added their own live channels to this upcoming service. Especially since their own "cord cutting" live stream service still hasn't gone beyond one or two test markets, and is probably D.O.A. by now.

[twonabomber]

I can get TBS, TNT, ESPN, and my local FOX sports channel on Playstation Vue. It's more than $5 a month, though.

Subscribing to Vue also allows me to use the Fox Sports GO app. The app needs some work, it randomly stops at times. Last night the app kicked me out of the game stream after every inning, had to go back and select the stream again. Cleared up after the fifth inning.

[FORD]

The stream cutting out might be your internet provider and not necessarily the app. I know for a fact that Comcast runs some sort of "bot" over their entire network at least once an hour and it always fucks with whatever I'm streaming, whether it's a simple radio stream on my desktop, or live video on my Android/Kodi box attached to the TV. Usually happens right around either the top or the bottom of the hour like clockwork. And it happens too consistently at those times to be a random glitch.

[twonabomber]

I dunno, Vue by itself works great. When I switched over to FSGO is when it got crappy. Wired connection, too.

I'm waiting for AT&T to try some of the bots or the throttling things, trying to push people to DirecTV.

[cadaverdog]

We don't watch that much TV here. Not enough to pay $100 a month for cable but until we find a service that plays The Walking Dead at the same time it plays on cable we'll keep paying for it. Does HULU or any of those other service providers offer FX streaming at the same time it does on cable?

[twonabomber]

Playstation Vue does. AMC and FX live. You don't need a Playstation 3 or 4 but you'd have to set up an account on Playstation Network. Works on FireTV, Roku, or Chromecast devices.

[cadaverdog]

Playstation Vue does. AMC and FX live. You don't need a Playstation 3 or 4 but you'd have to set up an account on Playstation Network. Works on FireTV, Roku, or Chromecast devices.

We have the Chromecast "device"and the newest version of Playstation. I'll look into it. It's AMC not FX that we need but the last I heard they were working on a new Sons Of Anarchy spin off for FX so I would like to have it as well.. Thank you.

[FORD]

FX is owned by Fox, so presumably they would be part of the new HULU service. I'd certainly rather have FX than FAUX Noise, which I would never watch.

I'm still waiting for the streaming service that doesn't make me pay for shit I'll never watch. SlingTV insists on making foreign language channels part of the standard base package, and maybe some shopping shit too (I forget at the moment... been one of those weeks)

If HULU sticks to the channels from their stakeholder companies that people actually want to watch, and doesn't frontload it with foreign languages/shopping channels/etc, they might well blow Sling and VUE out of the water.

[FORD]

We have the Chromecast "device"and the newest version of Playstation. I'll look into it. It's AMC not FX that we need but the last I heard they were working on a new Sons Of Anarchy spin off for FX so I would like to have it as well.. Thank you.

Sling TV also carries AMC (along with IFC and the Sundance channel - all the same company). That company doesn't own a stake in Hulu, so I'm not sure if they have plans to be part of the Hulu live streams. According to Wiki, they are available on Apple TV, so if you were looking for new video streaming hardware, you might consider that option. I'm sure there will be deep discounts on them in about 3 weeks (if somebody like Amazon doesn't sneak a sale in before then)

[twonabomber]

I tried Sling first. Video quality would drop at times, picture would get pixelated. They didn't offer the local FOX sports channels at the time and Vue did, so I switched.

Both Vue and Sling offer a free trial.

[FORD]

HULU Live Finally Makes Its Debut

Finally, Live Hulu has made its appearance. And for the typical cord-cutter who only needs "live TV" for news & sports, Hulu would seem to have a more complete selection than its competition (Sling/Playstation VUE/Direct TV Now/and the also brand new You Tube Live each have some significant gaps in these areas, where Hulu actually has all the majors covered.

Hulu might even carry your local network TV affiliates live, depending on where you live (not so much, here in Cascadia) There's a tool to look that up at their website. But here's a list of the channels everybody gets from Hulu....

Here’s the full list of the networks available in Hulu With Live TV at launch:

21st Century Fox
Fox*
Big Ten Network
Fox Business Network
Fox News Channel
Fox regional sports networks
Fox Sports 1
Fox Sports 2
FX
FXX
FXM
National Geographic Channel
National Geographic Wild

The Walt Disney Co.
ABC*
ESPN
ESPN2
ESPNU
ESPNEWS
ESPN-SEC Network
Freeform
Disney Channel
Disney XD
Disney Junior

NBCUniversal
NBC*
Telemundo*
Comcast RSNs
NECN
USA Network
Bravo
E!
Syfy
MSNBC
CNBC
NBCSN
Golf Channel
Chiller
Oxygen Network
Sprout

A+E Networks
A&E
History
Lifetime
Viceland
Lifetime Movie Network (LMN)
FYI

Scripps Networks Interactive
Food Network
HGTV
Travel Channel

Turner
CNN
HLN
CNN International
TBS
TNT
TruTV
TCM
Turner Classic Movies
Cartoon Network & Adult Swim
Boomerang

CBS Corp.
CBS*
CBS Sports Network
POP
Showtime ($8.99 per month extra)

* Live local TV affiliates available only in select markets.

Sadly, there's still no a la carte option where you can get ONLY the channels you actually need, but if you're looking for the best overall deal in an alternative to cable TV, I would say that Hulu has the advantage over the others, in terms of useful channels for the price. Which is $39.99/month (and includes the existing Hulu service, so that would be a $32 upgrade for current users)

[twonabomber]

Useful? There's still a lot of shit in that lineup.

I may cancel PSVue after the NBA playoffs are over.

[FORD]

Yeah, there's a lot of shit there that I would never watch. But as I said, most cord cutters really only need "live TV" for news & sports. And Hulu definitely has the sports covered better than any of their competitors. The news is pretty much standard corporate media channels, but at least they have CNN International, and I'm pretty sure the only other way to get that in the US is by bootleg streaming.

Hulu might take the lead in this market with their selection as it is, but when one of these providers has the balls to step up and offer a "20 channels of YOUR CHOICE for $20/month" that will be the REAL game changer. Whatever money they might think they would initially lose by not forcing crap channels on people would be made up by the volume of subscriptions.

[twonabomber]

I mostly watch local news. Going to add a preamp to my antenna and see if that helps with some of the signal issues. I'd like to leave the antenna in the attic, if the preamp doesn't work I'll move it outside.

If I dump Vue for the summer I'll still be able to listen to Indians games on Sirius.