Latest Show Tracker Distribution Trends
‘The Act’ is a true-crime anthology series starring Patricia Arquette and Joey King as a mother and daughter, charting their abusive relationship that ultimately leads to murder. ‘The Act’ premiered in the US in March as a weekly stack on Hulu, and has been acquired by HBO and Starz in various Show Tracker markets, most recently launching earlier this month on Starzplay in the UK and Germany as a full Box Set.
Hulu CEO Randy Freer revealed during April’s Disney Investor Day, that ‘The Act’ (distributed by co-owner Comcast’s NBCUniversal) was the streaming platforms most successful new show and “has driven more new subscribers-to-series than any other Hulu original in the first month”.
Subscribers-to-series is the industry go-to metric, identifying the number of customers who watch a brand-new series within 24 hours of their subscription commencing. This KPI is becoming an important benchmark for streamers as they assess the benefit of new content spend.
Upon its release in November 2016 ‘The Grand Tour’ (featuring former BBC Top Gear presenters Clarkson, May & Hammond) was the most successful ‘Amazon Original’ series at converting new subscribers to the Prime service.
Leaked documents suggest ‘The Grand Tour’ - with a reported $78 million production budget - generated more than 1.5 million “first streams”, giving the show a “cost per first stream” of $49 per subscriber.
Hulu have yet to state publicly whether ‘The Act’ will be renewed for a second season, however we expect this to be almost certain based on the success of the first.
Hulu is majority owned by Disney, who have an agreement in principal to buy Comcast’s 33% stake in 2024 for a fair market value, with a guaranteed price of at least $5.8 billion.
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