Students wanting to give their minds a break and enjoy the comedy and drama of their favorite TV shows are in luck, Hulu, the online video service that offers a selection of television shows, clips and movies, is offering a month of its Hulu Plus service to college students for free.
Elisa Schreiber, head of communications at Hulu, said because Hulu Plus is available on Internet-connected devices, it offers a quick study break in busy college students’ schedules.
“Even if you are in the library studying, you can hook up your iPad to your headphones and watch last night’s episode of “Family Guy” without disturbing your neighbor or losing your choice seat in the library,” Schreiber said.
Hulu Plus usually costs $7.99 a month. While regular Hulu is confined to a computer and the last few episodes of a show, Hulu Plus offers current-season episodes from more shows. Hulu Plus offers more than 800 classic films and streams in HD.
Hulu Plus also allows for shows and movies to be streamed to Internet-connected TVs, gaming consoles, iPads, iPhones and other devices.
When told about the Hulu campaign, many UA students questioned Hulu’s timing.
“I’d be very interested, but in all honesty, who can afford to worry about Hulu right now? All college students are tied down with final papers and projects as well as studying for finals,” said Ashley Neuhauser, a freshman majoring in psychology.
Barry Mason, the Dean of the Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, said he thinks the timing of this campaign may be beneficial to Hulu.
“The timing is ideal for a campaign to reach graduating seniors who will soon be leaving campus,” Mason said. “They will likely have jobs and be able to pick up the premium access fee after 30 days.”
The promotion began last Thursday and will continue for a limited time. To sign up, college students throughout the U.S. can go to hulu.com/plus and enter their college email addresses. When the one-month trial is over, users can continue their subscription and be automatically billed or cancel their subscription completely and go back to using regular Hulu, or, as Brett Neely said, YouTube.
“Terrible timing. As if we need more distractions. It’s not like I’ll take advantage of it though. I can find anything necessary on YouTube,” Neely said.
Mason, however, said he feels that students are capable of handling their time wisely.
“To me, the students are adults and can make choices, knowing they will live with the consequences of choices. Realistically, Hulu is likely to get fewer trial subscribers this time of year as opposed to other times because students are more likely to be distracted by the reality of finals,” Mason said.
“I will actually probably be taking advantage of it,” said Joey Gamble, a sophomore majoring in English and French. “There are tons of events across campus during dead week advertising: ‘Take a break from studying!’ Why not just ‘take a break’ right here in my room? Then I can go back to studying at any time—I’m right by my materials.”
