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HBO and Cinemax Come To Hulu, But You'll Need the New App To Watch (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Hulu this morning announced it's finally adding HBO as an optional add-on for subscribers, as well as HBO-owned Cinemax. The premium networks will be offered to those who subscribe to Hulu's on-demand service plus those who pay for Hulu's new live TV service, including both the ad-supported and commercial-free versions. As on most other streaming services, including HBO NOW, the HBO add-on will cost subscribers an extra $14.99 per month. Cinemax is a more affordable upgrade at $9.99 per month. The deal's timing comes just ahead of "Game of Thrones" big summer release, which will allow Hulu the opportunity to capture some number of subscribers for this premium upgrade. Many HBO viewers only pay for the streaming service while the flagship series is airing, as they want to watch it live but no longer pay for cable TV. Now, they'll be able to watch the show live or on-demand, along with past seasons of other popular HBO series, like the "The Sopranos," or catch up on newcomers like "Westworld," along with all the other shows, sports, comedy and music specials, and movies that HBO offers. Some of HBO's other notable originals include "Veep," "Last Week Tonight," "Vice," "Silicon Valley," "Big Little Lies," and "The Night Of." It's now home to kids classic "Sesame Street," too.
...that's an ad.
I tend to base my purchasing decisions on perceived value. Netflix gives me a huge catalog of movies and TV shows from dozens of companies, including itself, for nine bucks a month. This is almost double that for programming from a single company plus movies that probably mostly overlap with what I already get from Netflix.
The value proposition just isn't there. There are a couple of shows that I'd love to watch, but at those prices, I'll wait for them to all be cancelled, buy one month of service, binge watch them all, and cancel. If they offered their original programming by itself for three or four bucks a month, I'd be tempted to get the service on an ongoing basis and not bother. Thus, at least from my perspective, HBO is badly missing the sweet spot for subscription revenue, assuming they care about actually attracting any of the huge percentage of Internet users who already have an Amazon Prime or Netflix subscription.
Give us a $3-ish per month option that only covers HBO original programming, and you'll attract a lot more customers. Then run upsell promos on the home page for non-original content that they could be getting if they paid for the full service.
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To me, it is not worth $15/month. It is not worth a dime above $5/month. To me. I imagine many will disagree.
I've been a happy Hulu customer for a while, until very recently. The new app is so bad, I'm suspending my account indefinitely. The catalog has gotten smaller, the UX has gotten worse and all the new features can't be accessed through the old one (I have an APK backup and stopped updating from my Android devices because it's so bad). With all the new contenders in the space, I don't imagine Hulu is a good long term investment.
The thing is, HBO has more good quality original content than pretty much all the other channels combined. I agree that $15 a month would be a lot for most channels, but for HBO I'm just fine paying it.
There is no advantage to using their new way of getting HBO. As a matter of fact, it's a disadvantage because it will require the new Hulu (a paid service), and it would also mean it would be lumped into your Hulu, so if you ended up deciding Hulu was no longer for you, I'm not sure how hard it might be to dislodge HBO Now from a no longer working Hulu.
Sarbonn's blog: http://www.sarbonn.com/blog