Random Surprising Facts About Hulu You Probably Didn't Know (22 items)

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  (#1) Hulu Means “Gourd” and “Interactive Recording” in Mandarin

  Hulu has a couple of meanings. One, from an ancient Chinese proverb, Hulu was a “holder of precious things," literally translating as “bottle gourd.” Its second meaning is “interactive recording.”
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  (#2) Soon They Might Stream Full Broadcast Channels

  In 2016, three anonymous Hulu execs revealed that the online streaming service hoped to offer full streaming television "channels," instead of just individual shows and movies. The "skinny bundle" would include shows from 21st Century Fox, the Walt Disney Company and Comcast’s NBCUniversal, which co-own Hulu. It would cost somewhere around $40, and offer advertisers a more targeted audience for their commercials, as well as a more intuitive experience for viewers.
  
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  (#3) Americans Watch an Average 1.4 Billion Ads a Month, Hulu Plus Shows Less

  Hulu Plus users watch 10 to 15 commercials during an hour-long show. Broadcast networks average near 15 minutes an hour. Some networks are speeding up content and offering more 15 second slots to squeeze in more ads.  
   
  This ad cramming irritates viewers and helps push them toward cord cutting. After the deluge of ads within an episode, they jump to streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. So sure, those Hulu ads may be obnoxious, but it could be worse. 
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  (#4) Hulu Is Only Available in Two Countries

  As of 2014, Hulu was only available in the US, its international territories, and Japan. The biggest obstacle to expansion is rights agreements. “Expansion requires working with content owners to clear the rights for each show or film in each specific region, and those agreements can take a while to be established,” Hulu states on its website.
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  (#5) Hulu Was Originally Dubbed Clown Co.

  The joint project by NBC Universal and News Corp was operating under that name until it changed to Hulu in 2007. With growing revenue and subscribers exploding annually, Hulu might just have the last laugh.
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  (#6) Hulu Offered 2,900 TV Series in 2014

  It also had 86,000 episodes. This number is expected to surge with the influx of new shows and its own original content.
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  (#7) 37% of Millennials Watch Hulu

  And 14% of Gen Xers use it. Millennials don't tend to watch television shows on TVs at all.
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  (#8) The Ad-Free Option Is Not Completely Free of Ads

  If you want the alleged ad-free Hulu viewing, you’ll pay $11.99... and you’ll still see limited ads. The ad-free service will have a 15-second pre-roll ad and a 30-second post-roll ad.
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  (#9) Weekday Afternoons Are the Best Time to Watch Hulu

  Bandwidth gets pinched during peaks hours, usually between 7 pm and 9 pm in your area. Weekday afternoons are the best time to kick back and Hulu, whereas, nights might be a bit frustrating.
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  (#10) Find Your Happy Little Trees Anytime; Bob Ross Is on Hulu

  While you can and while the rights allow, you can watch episodes of Bob Ross: The Joy of Painting. Take that, insomnia!
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  (#11) You Can Customize Your Subtitles and Other Cool Stuff

  Click on the gear icon in the play bar area of the particular show or movie, scroll up to "Closed Captions," and choose "Options" once the main content of the video gets rolling. From there, you can choose the color and style of the one you like best. You can also dim the screen, create a pop out window, and change buffering.
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  (#12) Hulu’s Subscriptions Are Twice as Valuable as Netflix’s

  Hulu’s wildfire growth (50% increase in subscribers in 2013) and consumption rates make it a subscription monster, dominating even the mighty Netflix in this regard. In the first quarter of 2015, streams increased to 77% with an 83% increase in watched hours.  
   
  In 2014, Hulu generated 49% of its revenues from ad sales. Potentially Hulu could generate up to $3 billion a year, while some have projected even more. Netflix needed six times as many subscribers to generate those amounts in 2014.
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  (#13) Network Viewership Dropped by 12.5% After Hulu’s Launch in 2008

  There’s been a mass exodus away from cable toward streaming, with 3.6 million leading the charge after the launch of Netflix and Hulu.
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  (#14) Hulu Could Be Worth $8 Billion in 2017

  The projection was made by J.P. Morgan’s Alexia Quadrani and is based on Hulu’s service owners Comcast, Fox, and Disney. Particularly, it’s Fox’s hidden assets that could boost revenue.   

  As of 2015, Hulu was generating $72 million a month, with $860 million a year in licensing revenue.
  
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  (#15) Hulu Made $770 Million from Ad Sales in 2015

  This is the reason Hulu exists. Networks provide content. Hulu runs ads. You get that yogurt commercial stuck in your head forever. Everyone wins. And that’s why those ads will probably not completely disappear any time soon.
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  (#16) Alec Baldwin Put Hulu on the Map During the 2009 Super Bowl

  Baldwin was a spoofy NBC-like exec on 30 Rock when he made this 2009 Super Bowl ad, posing as an alien that claims Hulu is a plot to take over the world by turning the brain to mush and making them scoopable. The ad pushed up Hulu’s traffic by 42%.
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  (#17) Jason Kilar Modeled Himself on Walt Disney

  With Hulu's launch, Kilar was thrown into the spotlight and he quickly became a media darling. ”I tried to do everything I could to study Walt Disney," Kilar said. "I would read every book I could on the company, and then I found out more about him as a person, as an entrepreneur, and it was just fascinating to me that this guy was able to live a great life with his family but also do these amazing things at work."
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  (#18) Modern Family Showrunner Steve Levitan Went After Hulu in 2010

  Levitan was incensed at Hulu’s going public and how profits would not be shared among content providers, as viewers were picked off by the streaming service. "Some estimate Hulu IPO could bring in $2Bil," he tweeted. "What will the content providers get? Zero. What is Hulu without content? An empty jukebox."
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  (#19) Time Warner May Purchase 25% of Hulu

  The news was announced in February 2016 and sent ripples of concern. With the news was an ominous warning, “Time Warner believes that the presence of full, current seasons on Hulu—or anywhere else outside the bounds of pay-TV—is harmful to its owners because it contributes to people dropping their pay-TV subscriptions, or ‘cutting the cord.’” Brace yourself. Winter may be coming.  
   
  Will the company that raked in billions in cable fees get its hands on the popular streaming network? Only time will tell.
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  (#20) Use These Handy Current Hulu Streaming Guides

  If you don’t have time to find the best titles to watch on Hulu, Tom’s Guide is a great way to figure that out. Since the streaming service already lets you know which shows are popular in the main navigation, this guide bubbles up all of the good stuff buried within the stacks.
   
  Vulture also has a current streaming guide for Netflix, Showtime, Amazon Prime, HBO Now, and Hulu.
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  (#21) You Can Optimize Your Viewing Experience by Upgrading to the Latest Flash

  If you’re not sure if you need an upgrade, check out this Adobe Flash Player page.
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  (#22) Haven’t Keep Up with the Kardashians? Hulu Has You Covered

  
  

  Nothing gives more life than watching Kim K cry over disasters like wearing something Amber Rose also wore to the same invent, or the realest FOMO. You can cram all 10 seasons into your eyeballs and slice off a few years of any earned time in purgatory. 

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