Hulu Originals are on a hot streak, but could that hurt Disney's bottom line?

Hulu is having a certifiable moment with a string of exceptionally in-demand original series in recent weeks. New seasons of “The Bear,” “Only Murders in the Building,” and the rebooted “Futurama” have all debuted in the top 0.2% of TV series across all platforms with both US and worldwide audiences, Parrot Analytics noted in its latest report.

According to the research company, “Futurama’s” success is a good sign for Hulu’s strategy to dominate the adult animation space with US audiences. Eight of the 10 most in-demand adult animation series in the past year were available to stream on Hulu. Moreover, six of these were available exclusively on the platform.

This Hulu Originals momentum comes on the back of Hulu slowly growing its demand share for original series in 2023, moving up from 6.9% in the fourth quarter of 2022 to 7.2% as of the second quarter of 2023. This bodes well for the impending Disney+ and Hulu combined app, Parrot assured. Taken together, the new platform would easily overtake Prime Video as the second most in-demand streamer for original series in the United States and worldwide, behind only Netflix.

However, Parrot Analytics believes this momentum may end up hurting parent company Disney’s bottom line. Disney is getting ready to buy out Comcast’s estimated US$9 billion stake in Hulu in early 2024. An increasingly valuable Hulu would increase the price tag on that share of the pie, during an era of increased belt tightening across the industry.

●  TIME-SHIFT ANALYSIS

“Only Murders in the Building” hit a peak demand of 50.65x on July 28, a week before the latest season premiered on August 8. Meanwhile, “Futurama” hit a peak demand of 77.56x on Jul 27, just three days after it premiered on July 24, and “The Bear” hit a peak demand of 37.04x on June 27, five days after all the episodes from season 2 released on June 22.

●  ADULT ANIMATION

This chart suggests a major overlap between the audiences of “Futurama” and those of “King of the Hill.” The recent success of “Futurama” should bode well for the upcoming “King of the Hill” reboot. From July 1 to August 20, “Futurama” has been not just the most in-demand Hulu Original, but the most in-demand series available on the entire Hulu platform.

“Hulu’s focus on becoming the go-to platform for adult animation fans should be an effective one for retaining subscribers. If we look at shows that the viewers of ‘Futurama’ also watch, the series with the most overlap are long-running standards of the adult animation genre like ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘Family Guy,’ and ‘Rick and Morty’ – all available to stream on Hulu,”  Parrot Analytics concluded.