Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

Hulu Adds (Mostly) Ad-Free Subscription Service

Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins chalked up the exceptions to rights held by studios on select series. “They have other commitments that they couldn’t free them up for a complete commercial-free offering,” he said, adding that the service will clearly delineate the exceptions to users before they stream those series.

Other series that will have pre-roll include four ABC series: “How to Get Away with Murder,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Once Upon a Time,” “Agents of SHIELD,” and an NBC series, “Grimm.”

Hulu is making the move in response to subscriber complaints voiced in various forms of consumer research about having to pay yet still watch ads. Earlier this month, a Parks Associates survey found that half of Hulu subscribers have canceled service over the past 12 months, compared to just 9% for Netflix over the same span.

The new subscription option brings Hulu in line with its commercial-free rivals Netflix, which remains several dollars cheaper than Hulu depending on which rate its own subscribers pay, and Amazon Prime, which charges $99 per year for access to its content library in addition to free two-day shipping.

From the article "Hulu Adds (Mostly) Ad-Free Subscription Service" by Andrew Wallenstein. 

Previously In The News

Pandemic accelerates adoption of smart home solutions

This was one of key takeaways from the virtual CONNECTIONS Summit hosted this week by market research firm Parks Associates, which took place in conjunction with CES 2021. The event featured a multitu...

PayPal’s Popular But Apple Is The Class Favorite

PayPal is the number one mobile payment app in the U.S., according to research by Parks Associates and by quite a margin. NFC World reported that 12 percent of those polled prefer PayPal while retail-...

Connecting the connected car to the connected home

According to the latest Parks Associates research, nearly two-thirds of US drivers want connected car functionality as standard on their next new ride and 25 per cent of consumers are already intrigue...

Competing Tech Support Startups Merge To Provide More In-home Help

The U.S. tech support sector is worth about $30 billion annually, according Reuters citing research by Parks Associates. HelloTech’s competition includes the Geek Squad, which is run by electronics re...