ON Hulu (free version) Fox and NBC shows are available online (computer only) the day following the broadcast. However ABC shows, the day following the broadcast, are only available on Hulu Plus. Then eight days later the show is available on free Hulu.
Anyone have an idea why?
Because Hulu is a relicenser/reseller, not a free alternate to the networks. They have a moderate amount of free stuff, typically older and second-tier, as both a come-on and as an advertising vehicle.
Just-run shows are valuable enough to a large enough audience to charge their slight premium for. I find $8 a month trivial compared to the cost of cable, and we’re basically in a broadcast black hole (50-foot antenna, minimum, with multiple focus needed).
If you’re just being cheap, I guess you wait 8 days. Awww. 
No I am not cheap I am thrifty 
Please sell me on Hulu Plus. I have Netflix. Is Hulu Plus better or does it have additional content?
I disconnected cable late 2008. I do not have an antenna.
For $8, HuluPlus brings you nearly all the shows on the broadcast and general-cable shows, one day delayed. We only pay for two shows these days (Justified and SOA) - the rest (Arrow, Flash, SHIELD, The Bridge, Gotham) all cost us that flat $8 a month. They do have ads, but they’re short and have an ad counter (1-of-3, etc.) You could cancel the subscription in months when no new shows are rolling out.
Netflix tends to get the prior season, whole, about three days before the new one starts.
(I won’t go into how much that pisses me off - I realize that marketing strategy of releasing the DVD/pay streaming package just as the audience is interested in the promotion for the new season probably pays off, but more than once we wanted to catch up on a season we missed before starting the new one, and gorging on 10-20 eps in three days is not really our style. WHY can’t they release this material a few weeks out, instead of days - sometimes not even a day? Who EXACTLY is served by releasing a seasons concurrently with the start of the next one?)
Project Free TV
Where in CT are you? Stuck up in the quiet corner hills like us?
Hulu has a lot of cool shows from across the pond if you’re in to that sort of thing.
There are a number of computer-based options, ranging from the network sites themselves to the collators to torrents.
I got tired of f*cking around with a computer to watch “TV” years go. I want to sit down, push a button, and watch, not spend more time logging into a website, updating a driver, putting up with mouse cursors drifting across the content, etc. Gimme an appliance like Roku and a real TV.
I am in the southern most part of the quiet corner; but in a valley not on a hill.
I don’t know about all that but they tend to carry all episodes of all seasons of nearly everything. That’s hard to find on demand. Oh, and all the movies!