Hulu + Live TV review 2026: Still one of the better values in live-TV streaming services

You get not only a cable-TV substitute, but also Disney+, ESPN Select and on-demand Hulu.

Senior Tech Writer

Updated Tue, April 21, 2026 at 2:31 PM UTC

If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.

Thinking about ditching cable? Hulu + Live TV is like the "everything bagel" of streaming: You get the standard Hulu library you may already know and love, a live channel lineup to rival that of your old cable box and two amazing add-ons: Disney+ and ESPN Select, great news for anyone whose personality is 50% "obsessed with Marvel" and 50% "shouting at a referee through a screen." But do all these "seasonings" actually taste good, or is this content bundle more of a flavor disaster?

To find out, I dove into the interface, the sports coverage and more. Grab your favorite schmear; here's my Hulu + Live TV review. (Looking for more of that on-demand stuff, like from Netflix and HBO Max ? See our roundup of the best streaming services for TV, movies, sports and more, tested and reviewed .)

Rick Broida/Yahoo

Hulu + Live TV (with Disney+ and ESPN+)

VERDICT:Hulu + Live TV represents a better value than most competitors thanks to bundled Disney+, ESPN Select and "regular" Hulu. It also includes unlimited DVR for live shows. However, it's lighter on sports than some other streamers, and the interface has some shortcomings.

Pros

Simple, novice-friendly interface
Includes "regular" Hulu, which has tons of on-demand content
Includes Disney+ and ESPN Select
Unlimited DVR
No added fees

Cons

Expensive
No 4K on live content, 1080p live streams limited to select devices
Limited regional sports networks
Perplexing Hulu/Disney integration
User interface is limited or difficult in places, especially search

Starting at $89.99 at Hulu

Hulu + Live TV: What it'll cost you

Hulu + Live TV pricing is, on the surface, fairly straightforward. Alone, it's $89.99 per month for the standard tier (which, again, includes Disney+ and ESPN Select) or $99.99 if you want ad-free viewing. But take note that while the latter option removes commercials from Hulu proper and Disney+, it doesn't remove them from live TV.

An example: If you stream an episode of Bob's Burgers from Hulu's on-demand library, you can enjoy it ad-free. But if you watch an episode of Bob's Burgers on Fox or FXX (in other words, "live"), you'll have to sit through commercials.

Unless, that is, you record that live episode for later viewing, in which case you can fast-forward through the commercials (in standard DVR fashion).

As for the bundled Disney+, it's also provided with-ads at the $89.99 tier and ad-free at $99.99. ESPN Select (formerly ESPN+) has ads, period, which makes sense given that it's all real-time broadcast content.

A screenshot of the many available Disney+, Hulu and ESPN bundle options. — So. Many. Bundle options. With ads, without ads. With ESPN Select, with ESPN Unlimited. And these don't even include the available HBO Max bundles. I guess it's good to have choices, but, yeesh, this is confusing. (Rick Broida/Yahoo)

Here's where things get screwy: There are numerous other bundle options that, for example, add HBO Max into the mix or upgrade you to ESPN Unlimited (which has a lot more sports content than Select). They cost less overall, but don't include the "+ Live TV" part — the cable replacement. (Coming soon to a Yahoo near you: a tutorial on "Hulu versus Hulu + Live TV" for help understanding the distinction.)

To confuse matters even further, Hulu owner Disney plans to shut down "Hulu proper" (but not Hulu + Live TV) sometime in 2026, having absorbed all of its on-demand content into the Disney+ app. Find out more about this, and what it means for where you'll watch what, in the next section.

Assuming you actually want and value Hulu on-demand, Disney+ and ESPN Select, the $90 price tag for Hulu + Live TV is more appealing — especially when you consider that a competitor like, say, DirecTV also charges $90 but doesn't include those extras.

Hulu + Live TV: The Disney+ problem

The challenging part is the way you access those extras, specifically Disney+. Let me lay this out as simply as possible:

The Hulu + Live TV app includes both on-demand Hulu content and all the live channels. That's pretty straightforward.
To access Disney+, however, you must sign into that app/service separately (using your Hulu + Live TV credentials). Within Disney+, you'll also find all of Hulu's on-demand content — but not the live channels.*
To access ESPN Select, you must likewise sign into that app/service separately (using your Hulu + Live TV credentials). It has some sports content, but not the games airing on local channels like CBS and ABC or regional sports networks. For those you're back to Hulu + Live TV.

The good news in all this is that a newly added top menu (in Disney+) lets you switch between Disney+, Hulu and ESPN content; they're all siloed now. Previously, the first two were just mashed together, making for some decidedly un-family friendly content carousels. ( The Handmaid's Tale has no business on the same screen with Bluey and Mickey Mouse.)

A photo of the confusing, inconsistent Live TV menu within the Disney+ app. — Access Hulu's "Live" menu from within Disney+ and you'll get not the cable channels you were expecting, but instead a paltry selection of ESPN Select channels. (Rick Broida/Yahoo)

But, hang on, see that asterisk above? About the live channels? Strap in.

*Within the Hulu page (again, inside the Disney+ app), there's a menu item called Live — just like in Hulu + Live TV proper. Surely those are the same live channels, right? Nope: There's an ABC News live stream and an assortment of ESPN Select channels (still labeled here as ESPN+, by the way) that are currently live. Nothing else.

Meanwhile, on the Disney+ page, scroll down a bit and you'll see a carousel called Streams: It has a handful of live Disney channels and — wait for it — that same ABC News channel. Um... What's that doing alongside channels airing Phineas and Ferb and Toy Story 4 ?

All of this is an unmitigated mess. I eat, sleep and breathe streaming services and this routinely confuses or irritates me, or both. It's time for Disney to consolidate everything under a single app roof and make it all make sense. And call it the Disney Hulu TV Funtime Experience, for all I care, but get your house in order.

Ironically, I haven't even discussed the actual Hulu + Live TV experience yet. That's next.

Hulu + Live TV: A pretty interface with some irksome quirks

I tested the service on an Amazon Fire TV 4-Series and a Roku TV Select Series. The main Hulu interface is attractive and easy to navigate, relying on the common left-side flyout menu for access to things like Search, TV, Sports and My Stuff. On the Home screen you find categorical rows of viewing choices: Movies for You, Continue Watching, Newly Added TV and so on.

Hulu + Live TV (Rick Broida/Yahoo) — Hulu's categorical live-TV menu makes it easy to filter the available channels, though it would be nice to have a Favorites option. (Rick Broida/Yahoo)

The Live section is similarly streamlined, with everything neatly organized into categories: Recents, Local, Channels (the main guide), Sports, News, Movies and Kids. Missing is a "favorites" option, which some of the other live-TV services have, meaning there's no way to quickly browse the channels you watch most.

The main channel guide is strictly alphabetical; you can't change the sorting order. If you know exactly what channel you're looking for, this makes it easy to find. But if you'd rather see them in genre clusters (news, sports, etc.), you can't.

Wait, that's what the categorical menus are for, right? Right, except that while Recents and Local show you the corresponding subset of the main channel guide, the other categories don't; they merely give you rows of what's on now and what's coming up. I wish they'd show channel-guide subsets as well.

When you time-shift live TV, you also get options to jump to the previously viewed channel and skip ahead to the current live position. (Rick Broida/Yahoo)

Hulu could use some work on the search front, too. Although results appear dynamically, narrowing with each additional letter entered on the onscreen keyboard, there's no support for voice search. And while I got a lot of results for a "Tom Cruise" search, they were weirdly organized: First a couple of his movies, then a section of "related to Eyes Wide Shut " movies (um, okay), then more movie results (including some not starring Tom Cruise).

What's more, if you search for a particular movie or show that's showing on a live-TV channel but also available for streaming , you're given two seemingly similar options: record and "add to my stuff". This is potentially confusing to anyone who doesn't understand the subtle difference between the two. (Why record something if you can already watch it on-demand?)

Much more annoying: When you pause live TV and rewind past a previous commercial break, even one you've already watched, you can't fast-forward past it; you have to watch that same break again. (Fortunately, this didn't seem to be an issue with recorded shows.)

Hulu + Live TV: Channels and image quality

Hulu's live-TV lineup includes a generous selection of channels (close to 100), among them the five major local networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, PBS) and a solid helping of sports — though very few regional sports networks like on DirecTV and Fubo . (Channel selection varies depending on your location; you can enter your ZIP code on Hulu's site to see exactly what's available.)

Your subscription includes unlimited DVR and up to seven individual user profiles — any of which can be toggled for Kids Mode, which limits viewing to age-appropriate programming. However, there's no granularity available here; the mode is either on or off. You can't tailor one profile to, say, teenagers and another to toddlers.

While a lot of live-TV streaming services top out at 720p resolution (which can make video look a little soft), Hulu does offer 1080p — but only with certain TVs and streaming devices. If you have an Apple TV (4th-gen or later), an Amazon Fire TV or Fire TV Stick, or one of select Samsung TV models, you should be able to view most channels in 1080p.

But Android TV, Google TV, Roku and other devices are, for the moment, limited to 720p. I can't say this is a deal-breaker, because Fubo and Sling TV don't currently offer 1080p. It is frustrating, though, that Hulu doesn't do 1080p across the board — which, incidentally, YouTube TV does.

On the other hand, this really matters most for sports, as most live-TV programming (news channels, reality shows, sitcom reruns, etc.) doesn't benefit that much from the jump to 1080p. Image quality isn't great at 720p, but for a lot things it's "fine."

As for 4K content, there's none on offer here yet, at least for live TV, but most Disney+ and Hulu on-demand stuff (think: newer TV series and movies, Hulu originals, etc.) is indeed streamed at 4K.

Hulu + Live TV: The verdict

The streaming-TV landscape seems to change by the day — and usually not for the better. Prices inch up. Channels disappear during contract disputes. And don't forget mergers: Disney acquired Fubo back in 2025, but for now it continues to operate independently of Hulu + Live TV.

The latter's $90 price tag is competitive considering the inclusion of Disney+, ESPN Select and on-demand Hulu. It provides a respectable channel selection, if a little light on sports, all wrapped in a nicely designed, attractive interface.

But, yikes, venture into Disney+ and be prepared for confusion. I'm not saying you should avoid Hulu + Live TV because of that, simply that what should be a big plus incurs more than a little frustration.

If you want to kick the tires before subscribing, there's a 3-day free trial available.

Check out Yahoo's latest streaming advice, based on hands-on testing.

About our ads