Hulu has doubled the amount of content it is licensing from Viacom, with an expanded pact giving the Internet TV service exclusive subscription VOD rights to all past and future seasons of Comedy Central‘s “Inside Amy Schumer” and “Key and Peele,” along with other shows.
Other titles exclusively on Hulu under the multiyear agreement include: Comedy Central’s “Broad City” and “Drunk History”; MTV’s “Faking It” and “Finding Carter”; and Nickelodeon‘s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “Rabbids Invasion” and “Sanjay and Craig.”
Since Hulu inked its first significant deal with Viacom in 2011, “our relationship has only grown,” said Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins. “Today, we are not only extending our deal, but we are adding more premium content than ever from their popular family of networks.”
The new Viacom series will be available only to Hulu subscribers, either on the $7.99 monthly plan with ads or the $11.99-per-month ad-free option (although the latter includes preroll ads for seven shows, none of which are from Viacom).
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The pact is the latest salvo in the ongoing war among the big three U.S. SVOD services, as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon increasingly seek to lock up exclusive rights to popular TV shows. Notably, “Inside Amy Schumer” (pictured above, with Tim Gunn), just won the 2015 Primetime Emmy Award for best sketch-comedy series.
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Also worth noting: Hulu cut a deal with Epix, the premium movie service from Viacom’s Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate and MGM, to bring thousands of movies to subscribers as of Oct. 1 — right after Netflix’s pact with Epix expired. And, under a separate deal last year with South Park Studios, Hulu acquired exclusive SVOD rights to all seasons of Comedy Central’s long-running “South Park” skein.
The broadened Hulu-Viacom deal also expands Hulu’s offering of exclusive kids programming from Nick, including full past seasons of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “Rabbids Invasion,” “Sanjay and Craig,” “Breadwinners,” “Bella and the Bulldogs” and “The Thundermans.” In addition, all episodes of older kids’ series “Doug,” “Rugrats,” “T.U.F.F. Puppy” and “Planet Sheen” will become available to stream for the first time ever on Hulu. Nickelodeon library series already on Hulu include “Ren & Stimpy,” “The Wild Thornberrys,” “Drake & Josh,” “Hey Arnold!,” “The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius” and “Danny Phantom.” (Amazon retains exclusive SVOD rights to certain Nickelodeon series, including “Dora the Explorer” and “SpongeBob SquarePants.”)
Moreover, with the new Viacom deal, Hulu renewed rights to stream full episodes of Comedy Central’s late-night shows “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” and “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore” the day after linear broadcast.
Also, current seasons of some other shows from Viacom networks remain available to stream on Hulu delayed for several days after air. Older Viacom-owned shows that will continue to be on Hulu include “Chappelle’s Show,” “Tosh.0,” “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” “16 & Pregnant,” “Daria,” “Jersey Shore,” “Teen Mom” and “Teen Mom 2,” “The Real World,” “The Hills,” “Ink Master,” “Hot in Cleveland,” “Basketball Wives” and “Love & Hip Hop.”
On a separate track, Hulu has stepped up its investment in original series like Amy Poehler’s “Difficult People” and the forthcoming “11/23/63,” based on Stephen King’s time-travel novel about the JFK assassination. At the same time, the company has been aggressive at securing SVOD rights to top TV shows, with recent pacts for Fox’s “Empire” and “The Last Man on Earth,” Sony Pictures Television’s “Seinfeld” and CBS’s “CSI.”