Hulu Plus tops 1 million users

Hulu may be on the block, but that hasn’t stopped it from continuing to add new content and users. On the Hulu blog Wednesday, CEO Jason Kilar gave an update on the company’s progress as it enters the second half of the year. One key takeaway: The company is well ahead of its target of reaching one million paying Hulu Plus subscribers by the end of the year.

According to Kilar, Hulu Plus added more paying subscribers in June alone than in April and May combined, as the service rapidly gains adoption among users. The online video startup has 875,000 paying users already, and with those that are signed up for free trials, it has already topped the one million mark.

The interest in Hulu’s subscription service could stem from the doldrums of summer TV, as viewers look for more interesting content online. Or it could be that Hulu Plus has added a ton of new connected devices through which viewers can watch the service. Over the past quarter, Hulu has becoming available on the Xbox 360, TiVo Premiere DVRs, Samsung Blu-ray players and select Android mobile devices. That has added 25 million connected devices out in the wild that have access to the subscription service, bringing the total installed base to more than 100 million devices viewers can watch Hulu Plus content on, according to Kilar.

Or it could be the addition of more shows, as Hulu ramps up content acquisition. Kilar writes that the content library now has more than 15,000 hours of video, up from 9,000 hours at launch. The number of full episodes have also grown from 13,000 assets to more than 28,000 in the same period of time.

Interestingly enough, Hulu’s blog post today is focused primarily on Hulu Plus growth, as Kilar pitches the value of the company’s subscription service not just to potential users, but also to potential bidders for the company. That’s a bit of a departure from the last quarterly update, which focused on Hulu’s ability to drive ad revenue.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):