It may not be an announcement for the United States Hulu fans but it is certainly a start. The Hulu Japan division announced today that they have struck a deal with HBO. The deal is a multi-year agreement which will allow Japanese TV addicts access to American HBO shows.
The first shows in the agreement that will be available starting today are “Sex And The City” and “The Sopranos.” Later this year in 2012 Japanese users of the HULU subscription service will also be able to catch, “Entourage” and “Band of Brothers.”
This isn’t the first time that HULU has announced major growth for their “first International market” as they call it. Just this month they announced “Mad Men” season one through season three. The service in Japan has growing so fast that the growth number was announced at 300% of content growth since Hulu Plus launched in Japan in September 2011.
The Japanese market is being catered to with their own homegrown media as well. In their latest Hulu Blog they covered all of that content they’ve rolled out as well saying, “We are also proud that we offer our Japanese subscribers anime series, TV shows, and films from more than 10 Japanese and Korean content partners. In the spring, we launched a partnership with local broadcaster TV Tokyo that brings Hulu subscribers popular TV shows including “Moteki,” “Suzuki Sensei,” “Yuja Yoshihiko to Maou no Shiro” and “Saijo no Meii,” as well as next day, catch-up access to popular animation series such as “Inazuma 11” and “Danball Senki”.”
The entertainment market in Japan has been a big focus this year for Hulu as they’ve even been catering TV ads to brand HULU as a must have service. We’ve included their latest ad spot they’ve been pushing that is called, “The Story Goes On.” The video spot has also been featured online as well and looks to communicate to Japan that they are proud to be a part of the future of entertainment in Japan. The ad spot is below:
