Bill Burr’s Rumored Hulu Payday Might Be the Turning Point in the Stand-Up Streaming Wars

From an outsider’s perspective, it sure didn’t seem like Bill Burr, with his seven stand-up specials, animated sitcom and feature film screenwriting debut all produced and/or platformed by Netflix, had any reason at all to hitch his career to a different streamer’s wagon. Then Hulu (reportedly) gave him 15 million of them.

By the time Burr filmed his first Netflix original stand-up special, Walk Your Way Out, in 2017, the streaming giant had already overtaken HBO as the stand-up kingmakers of the comedy world beyond basic cable. Burr would go on to shoot three more Netflix originals and license three others to the streamer, and he would soon launch his series F Is for Family and his kids-these-days comedy film Old Dads with the bright red N for New Kids on the Comedy Block. 

But Burr was far from the only stand-up A-lister to make Netflix his new home. Netflix started producing original stand-up specials in 2013 with Aziz Ansari: Buried Alive, and throughout the 2010s, the streamer made a concerted effort to keep a large enough stable of superstars so that no one artist defined their dominance in the humor industry.

Over the seven years since Burr began his prolific partnership with Netflix, the other subscription-based power players have gained serious ground in the fight for a majority slice of the stand-up streaming market. Amazon and Hulu have both made massive investments in their comedy wings, and the latter even won Burr away from his old streaming home last month with a one-special deal worth a rumored $15 million.

In a Hollywood Reporter article titled “The War for Laughs: Why Streamers Are Battling for Stand-Up Comics,” industry insiders commented on what Burr’s move means for the stand-up streaming industry, suggesting that multi-platform bidding wars over stand-up stars may be the new normal. 

Get ready for Jeff Bezos to shell out a nine-figure budget for Even Older Dads.

As THR noted, Netflix first won such a large piece of the stand-up pie simply by spending more on each new special than the competition. Before Netflix began cutting eight-figure checks, stand-up specials were mostly a marketing opportunity for individual comics, allowing them to sell more tickets in larger venues during their tours. After deciding that stand-up comedy was an undervalued asset in the content wars, Netflix turned the streaming special into a serious payday for their artists, especially the A-listers like Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock and John Mulaney.

Netflix’s massive investment in stand-up streaming caused the stand-up industry itself to expand rapidly, and, today, Netflix now drops specials on a weekly schedule – but, as a consequence of Netflix essentially building the market for stand-up on streaming, its competitors now see the medium as a cash cow just as they do, and the checkbooks have officially opened industry-wide. Meanwhile, the original comedy movie is deep in decline, and TV investment is down across the board, meaning that stand-up is one of the few avenues for humor left open to a streaming audience that's in desperate need of a good laugh. As such, interest in stand-up has exploded in the last ten years along with the comics' compensation, making the competition to be the exclusive streaming home of each A-lister's new hour fiercer than ever.

However, according to THR, Burr's move to Hulu isn't just about the money – even though $15 million can go a long way towards changing any comic's mind. Netflix exponentially expanding the stand-up industry means that, even for the top dogs like Burr, each of their painstakingly crafted and proudly produced stand-up specials made under the Netflix umbrella is just one of many titles competing for a polling place in the internal algorithm, and every set is just one stop in the Netflix is a Joke festival. Apparently, those close to Burr believe that, when Hulu sealed the deal, they offered him the opportunity to be a flagship comic rather than “a cog in the wheel at a streaming behemoth.”

Hulu's current stand-up slate is significantly smaller than the menu that Netflix offers – and that's by design. Though Hulu now offers Netflix-sized contracts, they're sticking to a curated lineup of 12 specials every year, all from top comics. Billy Rosenberg, who ran Hulu's comedy division until this Spring, told his corporate overlords at Disney that he wants Hulu comedy to be “Target to Netflix’s Walmart.” 

Which, I guess, would make Burr the limited edition Stanley Cup Tumbler to Chappelle's 12 gauge shotgun sitting on a shelf across from a 128-pack of Dill Pickle Slim Jims. I'd rather be the cup.