Hulu Live TV Is Most Well-Rounded Cord Cutting Service

[Marshall Honorof]

Hulu with Live TV provides a healthy channel selection and more than enough bells and whistles to keep discerning viewers interested.

Hulu Live TV Is Most Well-Rounded Cord Cutting Service : Read more

 

[Gerry Allen]

Let's see...missing channels, double-dipping, terrible DVR, very expensive -- hmmm, can't see how this is anything but the worst value offering in the market. Happy with SlingTV, TabloTv and no $160 per month DirecTV bill.

 

[Penny_14]

No one seems to offer much in the way of PBS channels...I am supposing that comes down to $$$. Antenna TV is the only way I know to get it.

 

[Penelope_4]

Is Hulu still running that awful ViceTV ad where the guy castrates the lamb with his teeth? I got so fed up with CS's bullshit line to upset customers over that ad that I dropped Hulu and haven't looked back. I don't really like paying and seeing commercials, but I loathed paying to see that one over and over.

 

[rjdriver]

>>> Hulu’s double-dipping — requiring both a subscription fee and still taking money from advertisers — has been one of the most egregious cash grabs in the streaming business.<<<

And what exactly is the difference between this, and what cable TV has been doing from its inception?

The TV networks, or their corporate parent companies, saw the opportunity for this double dip cash cow a long time ago. In the late 70s they approached the cable TV companies and said - Look, we know you want to offer more content so we are creating some new TV channels. And here's the deal, we are going to encrypt the signal so that no one can pick these channels up over the air with their antennas. Only you will get the decrypt code. So people will have to subscribe to your service to get them. And all we ask of you is two things.

1. Send us a small monthly fee per channel for each subscriber.

2. Offer *all* these channels, plus our over the air channel. Its a package deal.

And what a sweet deal it was for the networks. Now they got to charge people to watch commercials! And they didn't even have to worry about all those messy little details like sending out bills to subscribers, or offering customer support. A few dozen local cable companies did all that work for them, and just sent them a monthly check.

And of course, the amount of commercial minutes per hour has steadily increased ever since. It makes no difference weather this egregious cash grab comes through the traditional cable wire or over the internet. It's still egregious.