At the same time, Hulu has expanded its distribution deal with Yahoo, which is launching Yahoo View, a new ad-supported TV-streaming site with the five most recent episodes of shows from ABC, NBC and Fox — eight days after original air date — as well as other network shows, day-after clips, and full seasons of anime and Korean drama series.
The moves come less than a week after Time Warner announced that it is paying $583 million to take a 10% stake in Hulu, joining existing owners Disney, 21st Century Fox and Comcast.
“For the past couple years, we’ve been focused on building a subscription service that provides the deepest, most personalized content experience possible to our viewers,” Hulu senior VP and head of experience Ben Smith said in a statement. “As we have continued to enhance that offering with new originals, exclusive acquisitions, and movies, the free service became very limited and no longer aligned with the Hulu experience or content strategy.”
Hulu is focusing on subscriptions as it looks to ratchet up its competition with Netflix and Amazon Prime, its two key SVOD rivals.
Yahoo’s new site, at view.yahoo.com, is now available in the U.S. Mobile web and mobile apps will be coming soon.
The streamer will begin notifying customers of the change over the next few days, and members who have been using the free service will be offered free trials of a Hulu subscription. Hulu executives, meanwhile, say that its free service has become a low trafficked product.
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