Hulu is celebrating the holiday season with a party – a Watch Party, now available to all subscribers, including those with Hulu with Limited Commercials or Hulu (No Ads) plans. With Watch Party, Hulu subscribers can create parties of up to 8 viewers to watch thousands of shows and movies together this holiday season.
“With many families practicing social distancing this year, it’s more important than ever to find new ways to connect with friends and family this holiday season,” Hulu shared in an announcement. “Hulu is here to help by offering our viewers the opportunity to enjoy a shared entertainment experience with their loved ones from afar.”
Watch Party is available on Hulu’s website. You’ll see the icon on a title’s details page. From there, you can share a Watch Party link with up to seven other Hulu subscribers so that everyone can watch the same content together from afar. Hulu says that “while watching, group members will be able to react in real-time through the chat function and control their own playback.” If you find yourself having to pause while your friends keep watching, there’s a “click to catch up” button to get right back to the same spot as everybody else.
You can use Watch Party with “thousands” of titles from Hulu’s on-demand library, including the company’s new original rom-com film The Happiest Season, which Hulu says broke streaming records when it premiered over Thanksgiving weekend.
A number of third-party co-watch apps rose in popularity during the early quarantine phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, services like Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, Movies Anywhere, and Sling TV have begun offering their own built-in solutions.
