Mike Snider

USA TODAY

Hulu's new TV show 11.22.63 takes multiple cues from the past.

The alternative history series, based on Stephen King's 2011 novel, stars James Franco as a high school teacher who goes back in time to prevent the assassination of President Kennedy.

Hulu adds another twist: While competing stream services from Amazon and Netflix usually make every episode of their original series available all at once, Hulu began doling out one episode a week on Feb. 15.

This attempt at resurfacing appointment TV is not a new tactic from the Net-delivered TV service, which you can watch for free or pay $7.99 monthly for films and full seasons of TV shows with limited commercials or $11.99 for no commercials.

King, Abrams team for time-travel thriller '11.22.63'

Its comedy series Casual, which earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best TV Series, Musical or Comedy and has been renewed for a second season, had eight weekly episodes arrive after a two-episode debut on Oct. 7, 2015. And another newcomer, The Path, starring Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad)will also land one episode at a time beginning March 30.

Binge-watchers, who prefer to gorge on a season of a TV series all at once, can still ingest multiple servings of series such as Empire (Season 1 and current season 2) and The X-Files, including past seasons and the most recent episodes.

But Hulu's special treatment for its original content could pay off, based on some recent research into how viewers consume streaming video.

For instance, much of what we love about streaming services is that they let viewers watch what they want, pretty much whenever they want, on a variety of devices — not just a TV. However, when most viewers watch remains the same: TV's traditional prime-time viewing period.

Demand for Netflix, Amazon and other streaming video continues to grow

A recent RealityMine survey of more than 7,600 U.S. viewers who get video on a TV or other device found that peak viewing happened between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. local time.

"People are creatures of routines and tend to have organized their lives and make pockets of time for relaxing and recreating," said Rolfe Swinton, RealityMine's co-founder and chief research officer. By building on that, Hulu's weekly rollout of 11.22.63 episodes is "sensible," he said, and could help "get people to come back on a repeated basis, building up the habit of using Hulu."

Another research firm, Jumpshot, found that binge-watching cuts into the shelf life of TV shows on streaming services. With Netflix original series such as Orange is the New Black, viewership within the first three days of a series' arrival is 25 times higher than in the subsequent two months.

Similarly, HBO Go sees a 60% traffic surge the day an episode airs and then a sharp decrease. That behavior suggests that Hulu's plans could help it build "a watch-and-return strategy like HBO Go," said Jumpshot vice president of marketing Randy Antin.

The challenges? "To succeed like HBO Go, the quality of the content has to be extremely high, which has been HBO’s key to success," he said.

Demand for Netflix, Amazon and other streaming video continues to grow

"Cutting the Cord" is a regular column covering Net TV and ways to get it. If you have suggestions or questions, contact Mike Snider via e-mail at msnider@usatoday.com. And follow him on Twitter: @MikeSnider.