- General
- March 1, 2019
- 4 minutes read
Hulu Nearing 2 Million Subscribers : Bloomberg
image : Hulu According to a Bloomberg report, Hulu – the video streaming service set up by a joint venture between…
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| image : Hulu |
According to a Bloomberg report, Hulu – the video streaming service set up by a joint venture between media giants Disney, 21st Century Fox, Comcast and AT&T – is nearing 2 million paying subscribers, with competitor YouTube TV already past the 1 million mark. The report says both services continue to add hundreds of thousands of customers each quarter.
This figure sounds impressive, but is a far cry from Netflix’s 139 million global paying subscribers – although Hulu and YouTube TV only operate in the US. Disney, 21st Century Fox and Comcast control 30% stakes each in Hulu, with AT&T holding the remaining 10%. But with Disney’s acquisition of Fox pending approval from regulators, the company is set for a majority – 60% – stake in the streaming service. It’s also reported to be in talks to purchase AT&T’s 10% stake, to give it a lion share in Hulu.
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| image : Hulu |
YouTube TV was set up in 2017 by Alphabet, making a 1 million subscriber mark a very good one since it entered late into the market. By comparison, Hulu first launched for public access in the US in 2008 while Netflix launched video streaming in 2007. The video streaming market is quite crowded, with other notable names like Sling TV, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Now, PlayStation Vue, Philo TV, FuboTV and Pluto TV contending for market share.
Disney is also doubling down on streaming efforts, with its Disney+ streaming service set to launch in September. Another upcoming entrant into the market is NewTV, a mobile video streaming startup led by former Walt Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg and former eBay and HP CEO Meg Whitman, that has already raised $1 billion in funding – according to Crunchbase data – prior to launch.
