Hulu registers 1.5m subs, says it offers best deal for content providers

Hulu had 1.5 million paying customers at end-2011 and says that subscription services will account for 50% of its business by end later this year. Reporting full-year results, CEO Jason Kilar said the US TV catch-up and streaming service will shell out US$500 million on programming in 2012, adding that Hulu can offer content providers 50% more than its peers in terms of licence fees.

The TV catch-up and streaming service posted full-year revenues of US$420 million, a 60% year-on-year increase. It added a raft of content in 2011 and doubled the amount of programming available on Hulu Plus.

In a blog post, Kilar said the dual revenues streams of advertising and subscription mean that it can offer content providers the best deal for their programming.

Kilar said: “Our dual revenue stream Hulu Plus business model enables us to compensate content owners much more than anyone else in the online subscription market on a per subscriber basis. At scale, our model allows us to profitably pay content owners approximately 50% more in content licensing fees per subscriber when compared to other similarly priced online subscription services.”

The Hulu Plus subscription service launched in November 2010. It topped the one million subscriber mark in the third-quarter of last year and ended 2011 with 1.5 million paying customers. Kilar said that it is now adding paid subscribers twice as fast as at this point last year.