The competition between streaming video services has heated up in recent years, but Hulu won a pretty significant battle this week in the war for the hearts and minds of television crime drama enthusiasts.
The company announced today an exclusive agreement with CBS to stream all prior seasons of the hit series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation — more than 300 episodes — on Hulu Plus. The episodes will be available to stream in April, and will mark the first time the long-running series has been available on a streaming video service.
It’s worth noting that the deal doesn’t include any of the CSI spinoff series, which include CSI: NY, CSI: Miami, and the upcoming CSI: Cyber. Still, the sheer amount of content that comes with the deal is a major acquisition for Hulu, and the show’s status as one of the longest-running scripted non-animated primetime television series in the U.S. (second only to Law & Order: S.V.U.) certainly doesn’t hurt Hulu’s reputation and ability to attract future programming of this ilk.
The terms of the deal as described on the Hulu blog don’t indicate when future episodes will find their way to the service, or if there’s any possibility of new CSI episodes becoming available on Hulu shortly after they air.
