Hulu is making moves to add more unscripted original content to its lineup. Business Insider reported Wednesday morning that sources in the entertainment industry have been seeing Hulu hearing pitches for unscripted content across a wide variety of genres.
Hulu has already found huge success in original content including “Handmaid’s Tale,” a viewer favorite. Subscribers have also come to Hulu for shows like “Little Fires Everywhere,” “Pen15,” and the new animation “Solar Opposites.” However, Hulu hasn’t yet introduced much unscripted original content to compete with competition shows like “The Circle” on Netflix, news like “The Amber Ruffin Show” on Peacock, or the large collection of unscripted lifestyle content on Discvoery+ including spinoffs of “90 Day Fiance” and a preview of Magnolia Network series.
According to a source for Business Insider, Hulu is interested in content including “reality, lifestyle, dating and social experiment, competition, cooking, documentary, and true crime projects” with multiple sources saying that “Hulu could become one of the biggest buyers in the space within the next year.”
Hulu is likely to get a boost from reality fans thanks to a multi-year deal Disney made with the Kardashians to produce “new global content,” which will stream exclusively on Hulu. Financial details for the deal weren’t disclosed, but we can assume the reality family saw a big paycheck, confirming the company’s interest in investing in unscripted content.
The timing is right for Hulu to create original content in the space, as networks continue to develop their own streaming services and pull their licensed content from other platforms. Just this week, Hulu and Discovery came to an agreement to keep channels on the Hulu with Live lineup, but likely removing the bulk of Discovery’s on-demand content from the Hulu library as it moves to Discovery+.