Hulu’s new look and Live TV service arrive on Roku
Good news, Hulu subscribers with a Roku. (Or bad news, maybe, if you’re not a fan of Hulu’s big makeover.) The streaming service announced today its new Live TV service is now available on the Roku platform, including Roku streaming players, Roku Streaming Stick, and all Roku TV models.
Specifically, the list of supported devices includes the Stick, Express/Express+, Premiere/Premiere+, Ultra, and a couple of older devices, the Roku 3 and Roku 4. Though this isn’t all devices Roku has ever made, it is the majority. The company also says that more Roku devices will be supported soon.
Roku itself is a key platform for Hulu to support in general, especially given that it’s now the top streaming device in the U.S. and still growing, according to a recent industry report. And rival live TV services, like Sling TV, DirecTV and PlayStation Vue, already support the Roku.
The Hulu with Live TV service is still in beta, but only because the company is still tweaking features based on user feedback. Otherwise, it’s fairly stable.
Like others in the live TV space, such as Sling TV, YouTube TV, Vue and DirecTV Now, the new service offers Hulu subscribers the ability to watch live TV and record programs to a “cloud DVR.” In addition, Live TV users are able to watch Hulu’s library of on-demand content and Hulu’s Originals, like the recent Emmy winner for best drama, “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
The service today offers access to over 50 cable TV channels, including sports and news networks – like ESPN, Fox Sports, Turner, CNN, CNBC, and Fox News – that are often missed when consumers cut the cord with their pay TV provider. Users also have the option to upgrade their DVR to include more storage, or add on premium channels like HBO, Showtime or Cinemax.
But the service is a bit pricier than other options, starting at $40 per month compared with Sling TV’s $20/month entry point or YouTube TV’s $35/month service. And it can get more expensive if you choose to upgrade from the 50-hour included DVR to the 200-hour one, or add on unlimited in-home concurrent streams, for example.
Hulu has been steadily rolling out the new Live TV services to more platforms. The service is now live on Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV devices, Xbox One and Xbox 360, iOS and Android mobile devices, and Chromecast. More devices will be added in the future, says Hulu.
The company also recently merged its Live TV app with its main Hulu app on mobile as it prepares to make Hulu’s revamped interface the default for all users.