Founding and establishment
On September 1, 2011, Hulu, a video distribution service operating in the United States, launched its first overseas expansion in Japan. The business in Japan was to be conducted by Hulu Japan GK, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hulu. [5] The company signed content distribution agreements with CBS, NBC, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. and The Walt Disney Company. Users were charged a monthly fee of 1,480 yen, and unlike in the U.S., no free service was offered. [6] [7] [8]
In January 2012, Hulu Japan began streaming films owned by Toho, a distribution company primarily responsible for the release of Universal films in Japan. [9] The following month, Hulu Japan announced that it had signed contracts to distribute content from Japanese film distributors Asmik Ace Entertainment, Kadokawa Shoten, Shochiku, Toei, Nikkatsu, and AMG Entertainment to distribute their content. [10]
The fee was reduced to 980 yen in April 2012. [11] The number of users of the service exceeded 1.85 million as of March, seven months after its launch. [12] In November 2013, Hulu Japan announced a partnership with TBS Television to distribute over 3,000 episodes of TBS content. At the time, the service delivered approximately 14,000 titles. [13]
Acquistion by Nippon
On February 27, 2014, Nippon Television Network Corporation acquired Hulu's Japanese business from Hulu, LLC for an undisclosed amount; the new company, HJ Holdings GK, established by Hulu, LLC through a corporate separation, would become a subsidiary of Nippon TV. [14] [15] [16] The service would continue to license and retain the "Hulu" brand and technology in Japan under a subsidiary of Nippon as part of a separate agreement. [17] After the acquisition of the service Hulu Japan's Vice Chairman Masafumi Funakoshi would state that he was aiming for the service to reach ¥150 billion in revenue by 2020. [18] Even after the acquisition by Nippon TV, Hulu Japan continued to distribute programming from NHK, TBS Television, Fuji Television, and TV Tokyo on its platform with Fuji Television content being part of a sharing agreement. [19] [20]
In June 2015, Hulu Japan released its first original drama series, The Last Cop , a remake of the German drama series Der letzte Bulle . [21] In October, a sequel drama series was co-produced with Nippon TV and broadcast on Nippon TV. [22] A sequel was released in theaters on May 3, 2017, as Last Cop The Movie and grossed 400 million yen at the box office. [23]
On February 16, 2016, Hulu Japan announced that it had signed an exclusive contract with the American cable channel HBO for a subscription video on demand (SVOD) service in Japan. [24]
On May 8, 2017, Nippon TV announced a revamp of Hulu Japan streaming service with the reasoning for the revamp being that, despite Nippon TV's acquisition of Hulu Japan, Hulu Japan's distribution system was common with that of the United States, and thus could not undergo Japan-specific modifications. [25] In addition, the URL of "hulu.jp" has been changed to "happyon.jp" which was later revert back to "hulu.jp" in 2019. The reason for the change was to reduce risk during the system migration, and to make the transition without stopping the service. [26] This sudden change in the URL made users anxious that the name of the service might be changed, or that the service structure might be drastically altered. [25]
On May 17, 2017, the revamp took place, but the service could not be used properly for several days. Also, without notice, changes were made to the copyright protection rules, and some users who had externally connected their displays were unable to view the service. [25] This situation caused Hulu to offer users "Hulu 1 month free ticket", "Amazon gift certificate (1000 yen)" or "iTunes code (1000 yen)", and also caused the first decrease in users since the acquisition. [27] [28]
In July 2017, Hulu Japan conducted a third-party allotment of shares with Yahoo! Japan, Toho, Yomiuri TV, and Chukyo TV as subscribers of the service with the purpose being to strengthen the management foundation and enable the production and procurement of more attractive content and significantly improve promotional capabilities. [29]
Hulu Japan launched its TVOD service, Hulu Store, on June 10, 2020. The store being available for SVOD members. [30] In June 2022, Hulu Japan introduced a new feature called "Points" which would allow users to rent or purchase videos from the Hulu Store on the Hulu app for Android and iOS devices with that feature enabling users to make one-time purchases of content within the app. [31]
On July 12, 2023, Nippon TV and The Walt Disney Company announced and launched the first-ever bundled plan between Hulu Japan and Disney+ called "Hulu | Disney+ Set Plan". The new plan offers a monthly subscription price of 1,490 yen, which represented a savings of approximately 26% compared to subscribing to them separately. [32] [33]
2.8 million (as of 5 October 2021 [update] ) [1] 
