One of the downsides of modern streaming is working out which service certain shows are currently hosted on. However, this is sometimes easier due to a franchise being deeply associated with a specific brand or distributor. Viewers can easily presume that every Marvel and Star Wars project will be found on Disney Plus. Due to Disney owning both franchises.
However, those who want to watch Andor, the newest entry in the Star Wars TV saga, also have another option. As Andor is also on Hulu. Here is everything you need to know.
How to watch Andor on Hulu
Up until now, Andor has been exclusive to Disney Plus. However, Disney announced that starting November 23rd, Andor’s first two episodes would be available on a few different streaming platforms. So, subscribers to ABC, FX, Freeform, and Hulu can watch the first two episodes of Andor, titled “Kassa” and “That Would Be Me” without subscribing to Disney Plus.
Why is Andor on Hulu?
It isn’t clear why Disney is doing this, and until they make an official announcement, we won’t know. However, this hasn’t stopped the internet from speculating about the reason.
One argument is that this is an experiment, with Disney Plus testing the waters for greater alignment between its various streaming platforms and partners. For instance, it should be noted that in Canada, a chunk of Hulu’s content and content made by other Disney subsidiaries is found within Disney Plus as part of its Star sub-platform. So this move could be Disney seeing if some form of cross-platform content sharing will work for American audiences.
However, the more prevalent argument is that Andor doesn’t have many viewers. Several people have replied to the Star Wars account’s announcement with tweets suggesting this.
Andor’s viewing figures have been heavily discussed within the fandom. This has been partially fueled by a now-deleted tweet from Brandon Katz from Parrot Analytics. He argued that Andor wasn’t seeing the demand that previous Star Wars shows had seen. And this set off a wave of discussion across Twitter and other social media platforms.
However, Katz retracted this statement a week later, saying that he “input the data incorrectly & it’s performing much better than the initial tweet showed.” However, he still notes that the show is “behind the others at this point in their respective runs.”
However, despite this, the show has done fantastically well with critics and has attracted a large following of non-Star Wars fans. This was even partially referenced by Andor’s screenwriter and showrunner, Tony Gilroy, when he did an interview with Variety. He said:
“I thought the show would go the other way, that we would have this gigantic, instantaneous audience that would just be everywhere, but that it would take forever for non-“Star Wars” people or critics or my cohort of friends to get involved in the show. The opposite happened. We ended up with all this critical praise, all this deep appreciation and understanding from really surprising number of sources, and we’re chasing the audience.”