At the top of the year, reports surfaced that HULU was throwing their hat in the ring to compete with the SLING TV’s and Playstation VUE’s of the world. Just recently, we’ve seen that DirecTV is also entering the arena, with Comcast and YouTube also in the works with plans of their own.
HULU has just locked down some big partners for their own service, getting the likes of Disney and 21th Century FOX to be included in the platform. This means that ABC, ESPN and FOX will all be channels included when the service launches in 2017. The company already had deals in stone with Time Warner (TNT, CBS, CNN), but no news on whether CBS and NBC have jumped on board.
Mike Hopkins (HULU’s CEO) has said that more partners are to come soon, but at least this puts their upcoming platform on par with what’s available. Price point could be crucial, especially if there’s no real difference in channel lineup than what’s already available.