Your weekly Only Murders in the Building fix just got a little more expensive.
Hulu has begun informing customers this week that starting on Oct. 8, the monthly price of its base subscription video-on-demand streaming service will shoot up from $5.99 to $6.99.
And the monthly price for the SVOD service without ads will go up from $11.99 to $12.99. (Hat tip to Variety for first reporting on Hulu's notifications.)
The price increase doesn't effect Hulu's virtual pay TV bundle, which packages a virtual MVPD with its SVOD smorgasbord. That's staying at $64.99 for a version with VOD ads and $70.99 for the sans-commercials iteration.
Likewise, Disney--which now owns more than two-thirds of Hulu and acts as controlling shareholder--has not changed the price of bundles that package Hulu along with Disney Plus and ESPN Plus.
Disney reported in August that Hulu has nearly 43 million subscribers. And the media conglomerate now prefers that new customers sign up for the service in the bundle.
Disney CEO Bob Chapek told investors that "a good chunk of our marketing now is going toward a bundle. While we enjoy extremely low churn rates on our individual services, the churn rates on the bundle are even lower--surprisingly low even for us."
Hulu, in fact, reached profitability in Disney's fiscal third quarter, which ended in early July.
The price increase also comes amid the success of Hulu's latest original series, Only Murders in the Building, starring Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez.
Hulu said it's the platform's most watched original comedy series ever.
