Hulu

For almost two years, Dish Network has offered U.S. consumers a streaming-television service without a traditional cable or satellite subscription — and the company has had the market almost all to itself. Until now. AT&T, which has tied up with Time Warner in a $85 billion mega-deal, is planning to introduce an online offering, DirecTV Now, later this month. A new paid service from Hulu, Google’s YouTube Unplugged and possible offerings from Amazon and maybe even Apple will soon join the fray.

Hulu has signed on Disney and 21st Century Fox for its live TV streaming service, which will launch in early 2017. The deals will add some three dozen networks to the service, including the ABC and Fox broadcast networks. Earlier, Hulu had signed on Time Warner networks, including CNN, TNT, TBS and Turner Classic Movies.

Want a side of news with your Hulu binge? You can now add some, thanks to Hulu’s just announced partnership that adds Scripps-owned Newsy to its lineup.

This week, as The CW begins to debut its season premieres, viewers used to streaming its shows on Hulu will be in for a surprise. The network’s five-year deal with the streaming service has lapsed, which means that for the first time, The CW’s website and apps will have exclusive in-season streaming rights to its shows like Supergirl, which has migrated over from CBS, Jane the Virgin and The Flash.

The Universal Television-produced Hulu comedy will begin airing on both cable networks in October as part of syndication deal.

Peter Naylor, Hulu’s SVP of ad sales, is clear about who his quarry is: “We’re going after the TV dollars because broadcast and cable ratings points are on this long, slow decline, and marketers are trying to find TV watchers, and they’re watching TV on Hulu,” he says. He notes that agencies have dropped the distinction between television buyers and digital video buyers, too.

The CW appears to be refining its OTT streaming strategy for this new fall TV season by making its in-season streaming offers exclusive to its own CW-branded digital platforms. The move essentially removes CW programming from Hulu.

As programming costs continue to bulge, big players have been forced to rethink the core building block of pay TV: the bundle. The “fat” package of channels, oft criticized for its bloated price, is giving way to streamlined options, including two alternatives last week, from Time Warner and Dish, that showed how the trend is gaining momentum.

Hulu made it official on Monday: The streaming giant has ended its free, ad-supported service as it moves to adopt an all-subscription model.

Time Warner shares are up pre-market after it disclosed that it has joined Disney, Fox and Comcast as an equity owner of Hulu, and beat Wall Street expectations for 2Q earnings. No word on what it paid.

Hulu is ramping up its slate of kids programming with a multi-network licensing agreement with the Disney-ABC Television Group. The expansive deal, which was announced today, would bring over 500 episodes and a selection of Original Movies from Disney Channel, Disney Junior and Disney XD to Hulu. It stands as Hulu’s biggest content licensing agreement with the Disney brand.

Product integration, in which products are blended into scenes, is hardly a new phenomenon. But the practice is becoming more prevalent in an era of commercial-free streaming and ad-skipping DVRs. For Hulu, the trend represents a quandary: how to keep its relationship with advertisers who help finance much of its programming, without alienating viewers fed up with regular commercials.

MoffettNathanson Research believes Hulu has an advantage in building a successful national OTT service — with access to a possible 40%-plus reach that the four broadcast networks have as a core base.

Hulu is set to debut a virtual reality series that lets users experience what it’s like to walk out on stage as the star of a huge concert. The series, a partnership with tour operator Live Nation, is one of several new initiatives announced Wednesday by the online TV service.

Beginning next year, the new pay service will offer a mix of cable and broadcast programming as well as news, sports and events. Hulu did not give details on the exact partners it will be working with on the streaming TV service, the exact programing that will be included or what pricing options their might be.

Mike Hopkins, Hulu’s chief executive, confirmed Hulu’s plans to create an offering of both live and recorded programming from a streamlined bundle of broadcast and cable channels. The initiative is part of a push by Hulu and its three corporate owners — 21st Century Fox, the Walt Disney Co. and NBCUniversal — to rethink how TV companies approach the future. He talks about a streamlined bundle of broadcast and cable channels and other plans in the works.

Hulu is planning a new web subscription service that would sell live and on-demand programming from the likes of ESPN, ABC, Fox and FX, for about $40 a month, starting early next year.

Subscription streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon take up nearly two-thirds of all online viewing, according to a new report. Streaming services have a 65% share of all online video viewing — with video sharing sites like YouTube and Vine at a “surprisingly low” share of 19% of total viewing, according to media researcher RealityMine.

Streaming TV has gotten popular as several online services such as Netflix make past seasons of TV shows available for binge-watching, while Hulu offers episodes from the current season. Now, some television companies are balking at giving viewers timely access to shows. The big worry: Making streaming TV too pleasant might encourage viewers to cut back or drop their cable service.

For years, the joint venture between 21st Century Fox, Walt Disney Co. and NBCUniversal was viewed largely as the underdog of the streaming world and was best known for showing major network programs the day after they aired on TV. Now Hulu is trying become more of a player in an increasingly competitive digital TV business. It has boosted its investment in original programming and this year pumped an estimated $800 million into buying or making original shows and landing high-powered licensing pacts with TV studios.

Viewers will be able to watch original video from Time Inc. on Web sites controlled by Hulu, Yahoo, and Zealot Networks, thanks to new distribution agreements between the publisher and these digital video platforms.

Fast-growing online streaming service Hulu is looking to sell an ownership stake to Time Warner Inc., a move that would make Time Warner the fourth media giant in Hulu’s investor fold. The streaming service approached Time Warner about two months ago with the proposition and talks are in the preliminary stages, a person close to the situation told the Los Angeles Times.

Instead of trashing the network news business, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings should focus on his core business. With the big old-line media companies growing more and more interested in the potential of OTT, Hastings is liable to find his programming suppliers morph into competitors.

21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch on Wednesday touched on the state of the TV business as it relates to on-demand viewing and tipped his hat to the growth of Hulu. During the company’s first-quarter earnings call with investors, Murdoch spoke of the evolution the TV business has undergone, noting the growing emphasis on nonlinear viewing and the emergence of over-the-top services such as Hulu and Netflix.

Jeff Bewkes, the CEO of DC-owner Time Warner Inc., told analysts on a conference call Wednesday that the company is considering whether to let online services like Netflix have its shows several years after they first air, rather than one year later. He said that could mean more older episodes are available on-demand to traditional cable customers.

The engagement ads are powered by technology from true[X], a subsidiary of 21st Century Fox. The viewers select a 30-second ad instead of 2 minutes and 30 seconds of traditional interruptive ads.

The company announced the platform with an explanatory video on its blog. Oracle will handle the “pumping and flowing” of information using first-party and third-party data, while Yieldex will “think and forecast various scenarios” for inventory management. Facebook-owned LiveRail is providing a “safe passageway for data to enter and exit campaigns.”

Forecast: The No. 3 over-the top streaming service will outpace Netflix in growth next year and Amazon by 2016, Credit a new, let’s-do-it strategy and better content.