Hulu's Business Model

Hulu’s hybrid nature and its hesitance to shake up its parents’ business models help explain why it’s currently the “oh, yeah, I forgot about them” player in streaming services. The privately held Hulu has about 12 million subscribers and is reportedly worth roughly $6 billion—making it one-eighth as big as Netflix and one-tenth as valuable. It’s a go-to source for “catch-up” TV but not for original programming. Missed the last episode of Modern Family? For $8 a month, you can watch it on Hulu. That—and not much more—has been its promise.

But the company’s soon-to-launch new service could change Hulu’s image—and open up a new front in the battle over streaming media. Sometime in May, Hulu will introduce a package of live-television programming,
“We’re able to tap into their brainpower. We’re not out on an island here.” Hopkins and his backers are careful to temper expectations about what success would look like. If Silicon Valley’s motto is “Move fast and break things,” Hulu’s is “Move gently and slightly modify things.” It won’t mean vanquishing the tech ­giants who have hit Hulu’s owners where it hurts, luring away their once-loyal ­viewers. But it could soften the
In the U.S., 18- to 24-year-olds are watching live TV an average of about 15 hours a week—down more than 35% since 2011. But live-TV viewing, especially news and sports, still pulls together unmatched numbers of people at the same time. That critical mass is invaluable to advertisers and media players alike: It’s no accident that tech companies including Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon have shelled out millions to ink streaming deals with sports leagues. Hulu’s new offering should have most of the news and sports from its parent networks—including, pending talks with NBC, the 2018 Super Bowl—along with the kinds of scripted hits, like Fox’s Empire and ABC’s Black-ish, that many people still want to watch live for fear of missing out on break-room