Hulu is not opposed to the idea of letting its subscribers pay more to avoid seeing advertisements in TV and movie streams.
For now, the online video site Hulu plans to offer a $10 per month service called Hulu Plus. The subscription includes back seasons of TV shows and support for more devices than just a PC, including the iPhone, iPad, Playstation 3, Xbox 360 (next year) and web-connected Samsung entertainment products. Hulu Plus is still in closed previews, with no date announced for general availability.
Meanwhile, I've seen lots of reader comments in stories about Hulu Plus demanding that Hulu remove the ads from its premium service. Responding to this sentiment, Hulu chief executive Jason Kilar said he's not opposed to the idea. If there's enough demand, he said, Hulu will offer a more expensive price tier with no advertisements. I suspect it'll be hard to gauge that interest level until Hulu Plus launches to the public.
Personally, I don't get the animosity over advertisements in Hulu Plus. There seems to be a mentality that if you're paying for Web TV, you shouldn't see ads, but the same thing isn't true for cable or other TV subscriptions. Sure, Hulu doesn't offer as much content as cable, but it also doesn't cost nearly as much, and Hulu needs to collect the ad revenue if it has any chance of growing.
As I've said before, my problem is the limited bonuses Hulu Plus offers. There are no additional shows in the pipeline -- at least for now -- you're not getting any new content, just more episodes of the same old shows. That's not a very exciting service even if you can watch on an iPad. In a higher price tier, I'd much rather see a bigger library of shows than the end of advertisements.
