Hulu Ending Free Version of Streaming Service

Photo of Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins by Paul Zimmerman/Hulu

As Hulu makes a greater push to compete against Netflix, it is eliminating the long-running, ad-supported free tier of its streaming service.

Hulu announced Monday it is shifting to a subscription-only model, maintaining its two existing paid plans, the $7.99 monthly subscription with commercials and $11.99 subscription without ads.

Not coincidentally, Yahoo today revealed plans to launch a new ad-supported service called Yahoo View, which will pull a hefty amount of content from Hulu, including the five most recent episodes of Fox, NBC and ABC shows, essentially offering much of the same programming as Hulu's free edition.

The news comes just days after Time Warner became a 10% stake owner of Hulu, joining co-owners such as Disney, 21st Century Fox and Comcast.

Hulu is also planning a live-television streaming service, with hopes of launching sometime next year, although details such as pricing and programming have yet to be revealed.

The free version of Hulu will be phased out over the next month.