UPDATED 14:03 EDT / JUNE 29 2010

Hulu Plus Brining Subscription TV to Xbox 360, iPad and More

The TV revolution continues, with Hulu announcing an upcoming service today. Hulu Plus, as it’s called, will offer a $9.99 subscription service for accessing your favorite television programs, on-demand. Instead of the limited season options and clip restrictions you get on the free site, Hulu is expanding its services to include full seasons of ad-free content.

Set up like most music services, Hulu Plus will also be accessible from multiple points. Get it on your television, iPad, or iPhone. Not to worry, Hulu Plus will soon be out for Sony Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, among other things. Android users are out of luck for now, which isn’t surprising considering Hulu’s shown no interest yet in building a dedicated app for Google’s mobile platform.

The concern around having to put a lot of resources into such dedicated build-outs, however, is diminished with the current market options and the plan of attack Hulu is using. Not only will it be relying on its own network for ad distribution, but it’s subscription service is also something that is also device agnostic. With a widespread and growing presence, Hulu shouldn’t have to worry too much about losing potential customers for lack of an account access point. Hulu’s Jason Kilar breaks it down on the company blog;

“With Hulu Plus, we believe we’ve met that goal. For our end users, we’re offering them the most convenient way to access their favorite shows, on devices they love, in high definition, at a fair price. For our advertisers, who allow us to keep our Hulu Plus price low with the support of ad revenue, we offer one of the world’s most effective advertising platforms, with the ability to speak effectively to users across a variety of devices, anywhere they happen to be. And finally, for our content partners, we offer revenues that compensate them fairly for bearing the cost of producing the shows we love.”

To some extent, Hulu is now competing with Apple, Google, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube and everyone else. It’s good to have some competition in the market, especially as Hulu is one of the only companies just listed that’s focused primarily on media distribution. With Google TV right around the corner, you’d wonder if Hulu was hoping to leverage its pre-paved distribution channels for reaching users, but Hulu has already teamed up with Sony for direct access through television sets and Blu-Ray players, among other partners.

What Hulu could still be missing out on, however, is the ability to fully leverage Google TV in order to tap into the other apps that will likely be a part of the upcoming project (like what Google is doing with Music). I’ll keep my mouth shut about that one, as Google TV hasn’t even come out yet, but my main reason for mentioning this is to note Hulu’s need to consider the broadening range of mobile platform options these days.


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