After previously announcing plans to launch a new TV streaming subscription offering next year, Hulu today announced new deals with 21st Century Fox and Disney to bring a ton of live and on-demand content to the new service.
The company’s press release notes the deal means content from a long list of top networks, including a lot of live sports and news programming from ABC, FOX and ESPN.
The full list of channels that Hulu will get access to through the deals include: FOX and ABC; Fox Sports networks such as the Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2 and BTN; ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN-SEC and ESPN 3; Fox Regional Sports Networks across dozens of key national markets; Disney Channel, Disney XD and Disney Junior; Fox News and Fox Business; Freeform; FX, FXX and FXM, and National Geographic and Nat Geo Wild.
A similar deal that it announced earlier with Time Warner means the new Hulu TV streaming service will also include content from TNT, TBS, CNN, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, truTV, Boomerang and Turner Classic Movies.
Hulu hasn’t offered a specific launch date for the new service, but says it will arrive sometime in 2017 to complement but not replace its current ad-supported and ad-free subscriptions.
While Apple has been rumored on several occasions to be working behind the scenes to offer its own subscription video service of sorts, so far reports have detailed roadblocks with negotiations with content providers. The latest development was the unveiling of a new “TV” app last month that will arrive for Apple TV and iOS users this December to aggregate TV shows and movies from various apps in one location. That feature, however, will still rely on authentication via third-party cable providers and paid on-demand services.
