We’ve known for a little while that Hulu plans to launch a TV streaming service next year that’ll work across devices, but we haven’t seen much proof that the wheels are turning for this thing to happen. This changes today as via a press release, the Netflix competitor has announced new deals between them, The Walt Disney Company, and 21st Century Fox to bring plenty of live TV content to their platform for 2017.
Hulu today announced new affiliate agreements with 21st Century Fox and The Walt Disney Company that will add Fox’s premier entertainment, news, sports and non-fiction services, as well as Disney’s portfolio of networks from Disney/ABC Television Group and ESPN Inc. to the line-up of programming that will be available to stream live and on-demand through Hulu’s new TV streaming service, set to launch in early 2017.
A list of all the current live TV channels Hulu will bring to their upcoming streaming service has also been revealed which you can view below.
…broadcast networks FOX and ABC; Fox Sports networks such as the Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2 and BTN; ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN-SEC and ESPN 3; Fox Regional Sports Networks across dozens of key national markets; Disney Channel, Disney XD and Disney Junior; Fox News and Fox Business; Freeform; FX, FXX and FXM, and National Geographic and Nat Geo Wild.
It’s worth noting that Hulu has already scored a deal with Time Warner (recently bought it by AT&T) to bring CNN, TBS, and more to the streaming platform’s upcoming service for 2017.
Overall, it really looks like Hulu’s TV streaming service is coming together nicely. With such a wide variety of content available from these providers, this service looks to be a pretty worthy competitor to even the top cable and satellite TV providers. If the price is right, I could see many people making the switch to this platform. Of course, there’s still plenty that’s required to really draw over potential users like what devices will be supported and whether DVR-like features are available, but for the most part Hulu’s next big streaming platform seems promising.
Notably absent so far from Hulu’s ever-growing list of live TV partners is NBC and CBS. Since Comcast, the owner of NBC, is already an investor in Hulu, it’s likely that some type of content deal will be made in the near future to bring NBC’s variety of programming to the web via the upcoming 2017 service. As for CBS, we’re really gonna have to cross our fingers because there’s not much evidence that a deal will/could be struck between the two companies. Of course, we’ll let you know if this changes.
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