Hulu has good news for TV viewers too cheap to pay a monthly subscription to watch new episodes on mobile devices: Starting this summer, select episodes will be available free of charge.
Hulu hosted its annual Upfront event today in New York City, where the streaming provider chatted up the latest programming developments for a captive audience of more than 1,700 advertisers.
The bulk of the event focused on how Hulu plans to get more eyeballs on its ad-supported content, and one way will be to break TV shows free of the PC and allow them to be viewed on mobile devices without a subscription.
Hulu will begin offering the initiative this summer, with "a selection of ad-supported full TV episodes" available free for smartphone and tablet users, although executives stopped short of detailing exactly which shows would be part of that mix.
3,000 unique ways
Along with network television stars from shows like "Community" and "The Mindy Project," Hulu executives shared the stage with special guests from original content such as "Deadbeat" and "Moone Boy" to announce more than six million subscribers are now paying for Hulu Plus service.
Currently available from more than 400 million US internet-connected devices such as Xbox One, PS4, Chromecast and Amazon Fire TV, Hulu Plus will also launch "the next generation" of its iPhone app later this summer.
All told, Hulu claims there are 3,000 unique ways for viewers to access content between the free Hulu and paid Hulu Plus services, with the latter seeing a 30% increase in average minutes viewed after debuting recent updates for Roku and Wii U hardware.
Hulu also announced a second season order for its latest original hit "Deadbeat," along with sophomore season debuts for "The Awesomes," "Quick Draw" and "East Los High"; a follow-up season for international Emmy Award-winning Chris O'Dowd comedy "Moone Boy" also debuted last week.
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