Theres plenty of anecdotal evidence that suggests Hulus true-crime anthology The Act has been a hit—from water-cooler conversations it has sparked to the slew of fact-check pieces its inspired. But according to the companys C.E.O. Randy Freer, there are also hard numbers to back that up. At Disney Investor Day, where the company laid out plans for its standalone streaming service, Freer said The Act “has driven more new subscribers to series than any other Hulu Original in the first month.”
As Deadline notes, Freer was referring to a metric known as subscribers-to-series, which measures new subscribers who join a service and then watch a specific show within the first 24 hours of their membership. Its a widely used industry metric, Deadline says, despite the fact that its impossible to say for sure whether those who subscribed to Hulu and promptly began watching The Act chose to subscribe specifically to watch that series.
Either way, the hit anthology has already influenced Hulus programming decisions, Deadline reports: its success boosted the streamers choice to order the Elizabeth Holmes–inspired limited series The Dropout, which will star Kate McKinnon as the failed tech entrepreneur.
After some initial struggles to find a hit streaming show, Hulu hit gold in 2017 with The Handmaids Tale, which helped push its subscriber base past 20 million and initiated an impressive Emmys sweep months later. Since then, the company has assembled an increasingly impressive original programming slate, with cult hits like Castle Rock, earnest dramedies including Shrill, and, of course, its very own popular comic-book series, The Runaways. As the streaming races become more fierce, Hulu will need every ounce of that mojo and then some to compete—though in that regard, it doesnt hurt to be tethered to Disney, which now owns a 60 percent stake in Hulu.
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