The Criterion Collection and Hulu have renewed their contract allowing Hulu to remain the sole online provider of the Criterion Collection. This deal grants Hulu access to 800 movies that Netflix and Amazon Prime do not offer.
The terms of the deal have not been released but it is rumored to run for several years. “It was important to us that Criterion actually have a home and have a strong central locus to which our audience could gather and know they were finding the breadth of the library,” said Peter Becker president of Criterion Collection.
The Criterion Collections movies will still be available for rent or download on Amazon and iTunes on a per movie bases. Only Hulu Plus will be able to offer them as part of a subscription service.
This renewal helps Hulu Plus to avoid the trap of being seen solely as a TV service to one that has a large back catalog of old movies to make the $7.99 monthly subscription look even more enticing. With new competition form even its own owners like Fox’s FoxNow, Hulu Plus needs more deals like this to remain attractive when many of their offerings can be attained free or at other services.