Hulu has confirmed that it now has more than 800,000 subscribers tuning in to their Live TV service.
According to Engadget, the digital content streaming company has seen a good-performing first half of the year. Particularly in their Live TV service, the number of subscribers grew from around 450,000 in January and was up to 800,000 last month.
This was confirmed by Hulu CEO Randy Freer during an interview with CNBC, saying, “We’re happy to say on the live service, today, we’ve surpassed 800,000. We had one of our best months ever in April and it continues to grow.”
Hulu still has a lot to go through to match live TV streaming rivals like DirecTV Now, which reportedly has around 1.5 million subscribers. Though Hulu’s live TV service is proving its worth and marketability, Freer believes that its continuing growth will be largely influenced by their on-demand streaming platform.
So, following the massive success of “Handmaid’s Tales,” Hulu is driven to add more original series to their on-demand streaming library. One notable upcoming show is “Castle Rock,” which will be executive produced by J.J. Abrams and is based on stories penned by acclaimed author Stephen King. “Castle Rock” premieres on July 25. Last month, Hulu also acquired the rights to distribute episodes of “The Weekly,” a set of 30-minute documentaries from The New York Times.
Deadline also reported that by achieving 800,000 subscribers on live TV, Hulu stays on track with its prior internal forecast. And while Hulu is still greatly behind DirecTV and Sling TV, it is remarkably doing much better than another major player, YouTube TV.
The same report tried to obtain the number of YouTube TV’s subscribers, but Google purportedly has not responded to the request yet. So, for now, people can only rely on analysts’ forecast that the number plays somewhere around 500,000.
Hulu’s on-demand service cost starts at $7.99 per month. Customers can also purchase a bundled service with Live TV for a monthly fee of $39.99 without any annual commitment required.