What TV Shows ABC, Hulu & FX Want to Buy Now
Mandates at the Disney trio reveal changing tastes in 2025
I write about TV from L.A. My Summer Sellers’ Guide has revealed what Apple TV+, Amazon, HBO & HBO Max and Peacock want to buy, and I reported on Gen X Hollywood’s career crisis and the boom in microdramas. I’m at elaine@theankler.com
Happy Monday, folks — I’ve got one of the last few installments of our Summer Sellers’ Guide, hot off the presses. I’m curious how many of you have been using my series as you develop ideas and plot out your pitches to networks and streamers, and whether it has given you a leg up on the competition. (Email me at elaine@theankler.com. I wanna hear how things are going.)
Today, I’m looking at Disney’s plethora of platforms: Big Three broadcaster ABC, streaming service Hulu and prestige cabler FX. I’ll cover the company’s flagship streamer Disney+, which has its own teams and mandates, in a bonus edition later this week, so stay tuned. While Disney+ skews younger with its arsenal of Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm shows and movies, and ABC likely draws in the oldest average audience, it all winds up in the same streaming universe, particularly now that Hulu is a tile on Disney+ for Disney bundle subscribers.
And it’s a bench full of heavy hitters, from broadcast staple Grey’s Anatomy to Hulu comedy darling Only Murders in the Building to, well, most everything that FX does, from The Bear to Shōgun to American Horror Story.
But what gaps need filling? I spoke to reps and dealmakers across Hollywood for this guide and they outlined the very distinct but also complementary strategies of these three Disney entities. For the most party, ABC’s linear limitations notwithstanding, word on the street is that Disney is open for business.
In this week’s Series Business, I dig into:
The org structure and who has decision-making power
What’s on ABC’s wish list (and what Hulu has to do with it)
ABC’s eye for “family feeling” comedies
ABC’s “familiar but different” mandate, and two shows in development that modestly flip the sitcom script
The Hulu premium on serialization and genres including “romantasy” and its twist on YA
The rise (and staying power) of Onyx Collective as other DEI initiatives quietly fade, and what the brand wants
What makes a Hulu pitch land
The one word FX execs won’t stop using — and how it’s shaping the slate