When Hulu's live TV service first launched, I was, to put it nicely, underwhelmed. There were some pretty colors and a few intriguing design choices, but there were so many shortcomings.
The biggest, of course, was that you couldn't use Hulu with Live TV on the two most popular streaming platforms around: Roku and Amazon.
Last week, Hulu has solved half of that problem, granting Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick owners access to the new Hulu app so that they, too, can watch live TV.
As a refresher, Hulu first rolled out a not-quite-fully-baked _ in industry parlance, this is called "beta" _ live TV product in May.
For $40 a month, Hulu's version of the cable bundle comes with about 50 channels, a so-called cloud DVR and, best of all, access to Hulu's standard library of on-demand material, which includes a very expansive collection of in- and off-season shows licensed from network partners.
But to get the live shows, you have switch to an entirely new Hulu app, one with a number of bells and whistles meant to make the viewing experience more personal. And, at launch, that app was only available on Android and Apple smartphones and tablets, the fourth generation Apple TV, Xbox One and Google's Chromecast.
Adding Amazon, then, is kind of a big deal, in that it finally puts Hulu in a position to compete for cord-cutters' attention.
Here's why: ComScore estimates that 38 million homes in the U.S. have a streaming stick or box, making these low-cost devices the most popular way for consumers to stream TV. Amazon happens to be the No. 2 platform, behind Roku, reaching 14 percent of Wi-Fi households in the country.
Lacking support for both Roku and Amazon streaming media players, Hulu was crippling its ability to take on Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, DirecTV Now and even YouTube TV in any meaningful way.
And, apparently, consumers are somewhat curious about Hulu's product. In a representative poll conducted by CivicScience, 25 percent of U.S. adults said they are at least somewhat likely to purchase Hulu with Live TV.
Since its launch, the live TV service has improved in other meaningful ways.
That said, I still don't think Hulu with Live TV is a winner just yet. In a fast-paced marketplace where cloud DVRs are the new normal, Hulu's version only lets you skip through ads if you pay $15 more per month to upgrade to the real DVR, otherwise your cloud DVR is just a repository of on-demand material.
