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NBC to launch hayu

NBCUniversal International is launching hayu, a reality themed OTT service

NBCUniversal International is launching hayu, a reality-themed OTT service.

The service, which NBC has described as ‘the first all-reality service of its kind’, will be launched in the UK, Ireland and Australia in March.

It will feature over 3,000 episodes of reality shows, including around 50 series that have never aired the UK, alongside familiar content such as Keeping Up with The Kardashians, Made in Chelsea, The Real Housewives and The Millionaire Matchmaker.

NBC believes that hayu is the “next generation VoD service with an appropriate level of interaction” for its target audience of 18-39 year-old females.

hayu incorporates curated content and integration with social media, with a range of features including specially made short-form snippets of content, which can be shared directly via social media.

The service will also provide a news feed comprised of tweets and Instagram posts from the stars of the shows.

Most content will debut on the service on the same day that it premiers in the US, with over 500 episodes added each year.

hayu will be lead by Henrik McDermott, who is currently the senior vice president of branded on-demand at NBC.

Speaking to DTVE, NBCUniversal chairman Kevin MacLellan said, “Hendrik is incredibly talented. He’s young and dynamic and knows the digital space very well.”

“It seemed like a great opportunity to aggregate the content into one place, but we wanted to do more than just be a video service provider.

“We knew that this audience was different than that for what I would describe as general entertainment video services and that it would take something more than just video to engage them on a longer-term basis.”