Hulu Plus Nabs SVOD Rights For 'Nashville'

Hulu Plus has become the exclusive subscription video on demand (SVOD) home for season one of the ABC drama "Nashville." Netflix had been offering the season one episodes since last summer.

The new Hulu Plus deal with Disney/ABC Television Group will include every episode of season one, along with every episode of season two after it airs. Terms of the deal - including the length - were not disclosed. But the press release announcing the deal did describe it as an "exclusive multi-year licensing agreement."

Hulu is a joint venture between Disney/ABC Television Group, NBCUniversal Television Group and the Fox Broadcasting Company.

Users of the free basic Hulu streaming service will continue to have limited access to previous episodes. Currently, the pilot is available, as are four other episodes from season one and four from the current season. They can be found here.

ABC.com will continue to offer streaming access to the last five episodes that have aired on the network. They can be found here.

Rival Amazon Instant Video does offer previous episodes of "Nashville" for purchase (as do several other sites), but they are not part of the free streaming episodes included in the Amazon Prime service.

The next new episode of "Nashville" airs on ABC on February 26th.

The "Nashville" deal comes on the heels of several other primetime broadcast TV deals. Earlier this week, Hul announced it had acquired non-exclusive SVOD rights to the first four seasons of the Tom Selleck police drama "Blue Bloods." Those episodes will become available later this year.

Hulu also announced this week that it had obtained exclusive SVOD rights for past seasons of "Elementary." The start date on that deal has not been released.