Hulu Is Looking Into Offering An Ad-Free User Experience … For a Price

Are you sick of watching ads on Hulu even though you’re already paying $7.99 a month for a membership? You’re not alone, and it looks like Hulu is exploring ways for you to get the ad-free user experience you crave (and that Netflix and Amazon Prime already offer), for a price.

The Wall Street Journal reported last night that Hulu is looking into a premium tier option for its subscribers, to be priced around $12 or $14 a month, that would allow users to stream without ads. The standard $7.99 membership would stay intact, and is likely what TV producers would like you to continue using, because advertising pays for things like the salaries of the people who make TV for you. But the premium-priced ad-free experience is definitely a signal from Hulu that they realize they need to compete with the superior user experiences of Netflix and Amazon, neither of which use the disruptive ads that can make streaming on Hulu such a pain. Netflix’s standard streaming-only plan is $8.99 a month, while Amazon Prime charges $99 for a yearly membership.

Of course, while Netflix and Amazon offer original programming and full seasons of countless TV shows, Hulu has been the streaming service of choice if you want to catch up on TV shows while their season is currently airing. Up until now, exposure to advertising has been the price you have to pay. “Concerns have been rising among media executives about the impact streaming services like Netflix are having on the TV ecosystem,” wrote the Journal. “In addition to siphoning away viewers and denting ratings, industry executives fear, they also may be training a generation of consumers to expect they can find their favorite TV content without ads.”

Hulu has been making a concerted effort to keep up with their streaming competitors lately. The addition of Seinfeld was a huge step towards competing with Netflix (whose additions of the complete Friends and Gilmore Girls series was such a hit). They picked up FOX’s The Mindy Project when it was cancelled from the network. They’ve recently partnered with Showtime to stream their shows (an answer to the recent Amazon/HBO partnership). An ad-free user experience would simply be the latest attempt to keep up.