Hulu launches live TV with 50 channels at $40/month

The company’s CEO Mike Hopkins says that Hulu With Live TV is more than just a standalone TV streaming service.

Hulu made the announcement during its annual Upfront presentation to advertisers.

At launch, Hulu Live TV is available in the US. You won’t, however, get HBO, AMC, Viacom, or Discovery since they aren’t in the Hulu family.

Hulu previously announced it will have services from its owners – Disney, Fox, Comcast’s NBCUniversal, and Time Warner – as well as CBS and A+E Networks.

The new live streaming TV platform is now live.

With its live service, Hulu is joining a crowd of streaming skinny bundles being offered at prices that suggest a razor thin profit margin for distributors. It’s now available on Xbox One, Apple TV, Chromecast, iOS and Android devices, with more device support to come.

Live sports stations are also part of the basket.

Sling TV can be lower-priced than Hulu ($20-$40 monthly), but does not have CBS, or ABC in all markets.

I’ve taken a couple quick tours of Hulu Live, and it looks good. Those four companies create a whole lot of movies and television.

The $39.99 subscription includes Hulu’s $7.99 limited commercial video-on-demand library of over 3,500 titles. Subscribers can pay more for no commercials, more cloud DVR capacity and more than two simultaneous streams.

The Hulu interface will be personalized, providing recommendations based not only on the content a subscriber consumes but also based on the time of day and which device they’re using.

One nifty aspect for sports fans is that Hulu allows you to follow your favorite pro or college teams, and will surface those games for you instead of you having to figure out what channel they are on. Parents will likely appreciate the Kids Mode they can activate that will only show kid-friendly programming and removes the ability to search and browse Hulu’s full content library. The subscription also comes with 50 hours of recording storage, the option for up to six user profiles, and the ability to stream on two accounts simultaneously.

And of course there are mods to that baseline package.

Overall, Hulu’s new live TV package is one of the most compelling out there.

It’s angling to upsell customers who want more than that.

The Enhanced Cloud DVR package expands storage to 200 hours, and the Unlimited Streams package lets users access the service on as many simultaneous streams as they want within their home and three outside the home. Hulu Live will cost you US$39.99 a month unless you also want Showtime, which adds $8.99 to the price.

Hulu With Live TV has been launched in beta today.

Like others before it, Hulu has gotten into the live-streaming TV business with its new service, Hulu Live TV. Magna, Horizon Media and GroupM are among the first agencies to adopt Hulu’s DAR product. It’s ideal for cord-cutters who already love Hulu but miss the convenience of live TV, local programming, and sports.