In the thick of recent, massive investments in established television brands, Hulu has made plenty of moves toward original programming as well in its ongoing efforts to stay afloat with its competitors. But until Hulu’s summer TCA session on Sunday, it was unknown exactly how the streaming service would distribute its new slate of originals to the world: all at once as per the Netflix model, or weekly in the way of traditional broadcast?

The answer is that in this era of binge-watching, Hulu has elected “to release episodes weekly with all of our originals,” said Craig Erwich, the company’s SVP and head of content. “We want to give viewers the option to discover their favorite shows very week, because we value the TV water-cooler conversation as much as you do.”

In addition to possibly generating more word-of-mouth around shows, a weekly release model “lets us get shows out to viewers faster, without waiting for series completion,” said Erwich. However, it remains to be seen if a new series airing exclusively via streaming can benefit from the same parsed-out distribution system as linear broadcast, where viewers are accustomed to scheduling their viewing around specific time periods, and focusing their chatter accordingly as they wait in breathless anticipation for the next chance to tune in. Viewers don’t have the same relationship with streaming services, where they don’t tune in so much as log on at the time most convenient to them, whereupon they expect entire seasons to be available at once, and not in meted doses.

The good news for Hulu is, it probably doesn’t matter. Regardless of how they get there, all episodes of all of Hulu’s originals will ultimately be available simultaneously like any other streaming offering, “and continue to be available for many years to come,” said Erwich. The company can experiment with release strategies and still embrace binging with as much gusto as ever before, if not more so. “Recent deals for the likes of South Park, Empire and other high-profile shows seem custom-made for consumption in large quantities, and Erwich was quick to point out that thousands of people streamed every episode of Seinfeld back-to-back when it launched on Hulu in June. “These are people who are truly masters of their streaming domain,” he joked.

But binge-watching, for all its hype, is ultimately a lonely pursuit, according to Liz Tigelaar, executive producer of the upcoming Hulu original Casual. “For me,” she said during her show’s TCA session on Saturday, the problem with binge-viewing is you don’t get to talk about it with anyone.”

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