A little over a year after launching, Hulu’s live TV service has amassed more than 800,000 subscribers, CEO Randy Freer disclosed on CNBC Wednesday.
Earlier this year, Hulu announced it had about 20 million subscribers overall including its SVOD service, but this is the first time the company broke out figures for its $40 per month live streaming service.
“We had one of our best month’s ever in April and it [Hulu’s live TV service] continues to grow,” Freer told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin.
Hulu still faces tough competition in the vMVPD market including against Dish’s Sling TV and AT&T’s DirecTV Now, which have 2.3 million and 1.46 million subscribers, respectively. YouTube TV and Sony’s PlayStation Vue are also in the mix, though neither of those services have reported subscriber milestones.
Addressing the question of competition, Freer pointed to the additional SVOD content customers also get access to with their live TV subscription.
“What people lose sight of for us, in the $39.99 package, you get live TV plus you get the entire Hulu on-demand service, so that’s 75,000 episodes of television, it’s original programming, it’s short form, it’s all of the things that people love,” Freer said. “So when you look at that package – and we do a better job of really promoting and really getting it out there – I think we’re going to see that tick up and we’ll do great against others in the marketplace.”
