Hulu Considering Ad Free Subscription Plan

Hulu is looking into offering its users with an advertising-free service, the Wall Street Journal claims. The streaming service may offer an extra tier of service that removes advertisements from view, one that costs even more than the existing premium subscription option, as Hulu faces increased pressure from Amazon prime Instant Video and Netflix, two competing services that do away with advertising completely.

Supposedly codenamed “NOAH”, standing for “No Ads Hulu,” the company is apparently looking at pricing the ad-free option for around $12 to $14 per month. While this is double the $8 per month for the premium service, this is also far above Netflix’s monthly subscription and the equivalent per-month cost of Amazon Prime, though apparently this would also be a way to avoid encouraging users to the ad-free offering. One source claimed Hulu still believed its ad-supported service was still viable, with it hoping to use its collected data to better target the advertisements it shows.

At the moment, Hulu is the underdog in the streaming market, with approximately 9 million subscribers compared to Netflix’s 65 million global subscribers. In terms of finances, Hulu is expected to earn between $1.5 billion and $1.7 billion in revenue for the entire year, while Netflix earned $5.5 billion in 2014.

Netflix and Prime Instant Video may be the main competition for Hulu, but there are others it needs to watch out for. Internet TV services such as Sling TV and PlayStation Vue offer broadcast TV and DVR services at a reasonable cost, and broadcasters including HBO are also moving to providing streaming subscriptions independently of cable services.